


finding a home

by rievu



Series: a family of heroes [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, and finding a home in the great wide somewhere after being lost for so long, just a thing about finding yourself and coming to terms with things, not a shippy thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 10:43:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15362811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rievu/pseuds/rievu
Summary: There is something about being in a body that isn't truly yours, and Widowmaker knows that through every fiber of her body. With the help of the remnants of Amélie Lacroix singing in the back of her mind and the help of a few others, she chooses a different path for her life. Perhaps in the end, both Widowmaker and Amélie will find a type of peace and a home to harbor them both.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is the sequel to my other fic, [finding family](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13186434). it'll probably make more sense if you read that first, so go right ahead!
> 
> this fic will include:  
> \- descriptions of fighting and violence  
> \- two minds in one body (widowmaker and amélie lacroix)  
> \- mentions of death (ex: gérard lacroix)
> 
> i will add additional warnings if it is necessary + please let me know if you think some are necessary!
> 
> hope you enjoy!

Amélie Lacroix loved to dance.

Widowmaker knows this as surely as she knows her own heartbeat: 50 beats per minute. She could hear the beat in her ears whenever she lined up a shot. The single space between two beats was 1.2 seconds, and only two were necessary to line up her aim with a moving target. She needed only one space to line up her aim for a still one, perhaps even less.

For Amélie Lacroix, that beat was too slow. Widowmaker can visualize the former ballerina’s head shake as she insists in clipped French, _that is too slow, that is barely half of a moderato, an andante moderato at best, even Odette’s scene with the prince is a moderato, imbécile._

Still, that heart rate made her aim impeccable and her mind as cold and sharp as ice. To Widowmaker, that is a worthy price for the benefits that she reaps. And still, when Widowmaker flexes her feet, she thinks that she could still dance

That same beat rings loud and clear in her head when she’s waiting on her perch in Lijiang Tower. 1.2 seconds tick by between each and every space of her slow heartbeat, and she waits and watches for her prey. A cowboy and a ninja, she’s told. Amélie Lacroix also remembers them; they were kind to her during her visits to her husband’s office. Widowmaker could care less about them. She wants none of it, nothing of that woman’s former life.

Amélie, however, sings in the back of her mind. Widowmaker scowls as the woman’s clear voice sings old French melodies that she used to sing quietly in the office after hours. Because after hours, there would be agents waiting to report to Gérard, agents that were often tired and sleep-deprived and sometimes even stained red. Amélie pauses only to tell her that Jesse McCree was one agent in particular who stopped by Gérard’s office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays after hours because those were the days she came in to check up on her work-frazzled husband. She never found out what department Jesse came from, but he always came in the dark of night. Amélie whistles the song next; memories tell her that Jesse McCree and Amélie Lacroix would whistle in duets with only a door to set them apart. _He was so young_ , Amélie says sadly. _Now, I am the one who is young._

Amélie is right; both she and Widowmaker stopped physically aging after the drugs and serums slowed their heart down and turned their skin a cold, pale blue. Still, Amélie continues to sing as Widowmaker peers through her scope at the cowboy and the Shimada heir. Even as Widowmaker fights the two, Amélie continues to sing. With every missed shot, Amélie’s song grows louder until it becomes a pounding, thrumming melody that makes her ears bleed.

Widowmaker dances, dodging bullets as they come. Her sense of perception seems to grow even finer as it attunes to the pattern of the shots as they come. The cowboy has nearly unerring aim, but the number of bullets in a single cartridge for his gun is much, much less than hers. She does have to keep an eye out for when he rolls because he has a peculiar habit of rolling and reloading at the same time. The arrows come far more slowly than the bullets do, and Widowmaker almost laughs at the sheer anachronistic quality of them. Who would use arrows in an age of bullets and biting metal? Truly a foolish mistake. Altering the tempo of her steps, leaps, and shots helps keep the two men on their toes and bullets off her back. She only ceases her dance when Reaper’s dry, crackling voice rings out over the communication line, telling her to withdraw. Widowmaker spares one last final glance at the two before she grapples away and fades into the shadows with practiced ease.

Despite it all, the mission does not go as planned. This is one of many that have not gone quite right. Widowmaker knows this, and she regrets the imperfectness of it all. Yes, the enemies of Talon should have been eliminated, but the crux of it is that plans well laid should not go awry. And yet, they did. The incident at Volskaya Industries, and now, the “accident” at Lijiang Towers. Unexpected factors and variables always seemed to pop up right where she didn’t want them, and the mathematics of the mission lilt sideways. This time, the unwanted factors are a dead girl with a mech and a runaway scion with a bow. Unacceptable. Simply unacceptable.

Half of her wonders if Reaper is still fit to make decisions. Most of the missions that went wrong had his touch on them. Still, she reins in her thoughts and thinks between the spaces of her heartbeat. She is not entirely blameless. She still remembers the jolt of a single shot. An error emblazoned in a bang. Amélie screaming in her ears after one of her former friends fell to the ground with blood dripping down her eye like tears. Widowmaker chokes back the thought viciously; Amélie reluctantly subsides as the memory gets shoved to the very bottom of their minds.

Time passes by in 1.2 second increments as she waits on the shuttle ride back to the safehouse. Reaper is in the seat in front of her, barely holding together, and Widowmaker glances at him with hooded eyes. She can’t see his face underneath the mask, and quite frankly, neither Amélie or she want to see him. Amélie is horrified at the way her _old friend_ has become, and Widowmaker wants none of the emotion leftover from the remnants of Amélie Lacroix in her mind.

She supposes that she could always go back to the doctor for another round of treatments. Another dose of drugs to numb the mind and ease the heartache. Widowmaker idly wonders if another round of treatments will lower her heartbeat from 50 to 40. The spaces between the rhythms of her heart would grow even wider, and with that, the margin of error of her aims would narrow down to just a sliver of a centimeter. The thought is appealing to Widowmaker, and it must be absolutely terrifying for Amélie Lacroix. However, this momentary lapse in serums and injections and treatments offered Widowmaker an unknown sense of clarity about her. Perhaps clarity was not the right word for it.

The oversight of additional treatment from the higher-ups meant that she, Widowmaker, the tool that _they_ created, had more energy and freedom to _think_ . Although that means sacrificing more of her precious mind-space to the phantom of a woman past, it meant that for once, Widowmaker could do something _more_ within the spaces of her heart. It meant that for once, Widowmaker could step back and examine the world and her web with a fresh eye. In all honesty, Widowmaker was no longer content with the information she was being fed. The idea of gathering her own information and making her own judgement was appealing, and that would further emphasize the fact that she was her own person rather than a glass mind in the wrong body.

So, Widowmaker resolves to continue to keep the sham up. She may be plagued by a ghost in her head, a ghost that will not disappear no matter how many times she tries to choke it down, but she will _stay_ in this half-living, half-dying world with a brighter eye. She swears it.

She wonders if the choice was misplaced as she lies, broken and bleeding out in the snow of Nepal. That should not have gone the way it had. She had all the ways to escape: a grappling hook, venom mine after venom mine, and yet, something made her slow down and take a closer look at the little spitfire piloting the mech. Snowflakes lazily fall above her and dust her blue skin with delicate white. It takes much longer to melt on her skin, and she can’t even feel the added chill that the snow and wind is supposed to give her. Widowmaker grimaces and feels her fractured bones shift in response to the inhale of breath. She’ll bleed out even more for that now. Actually, she’s not really bleeding out in the traditional sense. Her heart beats too slow for that to happen; it’s more of a slow and tiring ooze. Widowmaker counts the beats in her head, and quietly, the soft notes of Tchaikovsky flutter into her ear. With that, she closes her eyes and waits for the Talon shuttle to pick her up. They have her location; they shouldn’t be far off now.

There is only one mercy about having Amélie Lacroix in her head. At least Widowmaker will die with music in her ears. It is a music that blossoms to the same rhythm of her altered heart.

For a moment, she remembers the glint of determination in that girl’s eyes from the cockpit. Hana Song, a supposedly dead superstar. Widowmaker doesn’t see the charm; the pilot is nothing more than a child, and children do not belong on battlefields. This one must have slipped through the cracks that laws and governments were supposed to set up against it. No matter; children were even easier to kill. Hana Song will be dead in every sense of the term soon enough if Talon has their own say in it. And Talon _always_ has their own say on matters.

Widowmaker exhales just before she plummets into the inky black of unconsciousness. But _of course_ , Amélie Lacroix haunts her even then. Widowmaker finds herself in an immaculate Overwatch office from Lacroix’s memories, and the woman herself stands behind the desk, staring out the window. The window’s blinds are tightly drawn, and Widowmaker resentfully thinks, _what a fool._ When she steps forward, her heel clicks against the floor and Amélie glances back at her.

“You thought you found a way,” Amélie whispers. Widowmaker’s gaze snaps to her face, so like her own, but instead of sickly blue, Amélie’s skin is pale white, marble, ghostly, almost translucent in the dreamscape. Her eyes aren’t as light; they’re a deep, rich amber-brown color instead of the gold that Widowmaker has.

“You thought you found a way to kill me off,” she repeats. The sentence itself sounds like an accusation, but her voice is flat and devoid of any emotion. So much like Widowmaker herself.

“But you never go away,” Widowmaker says slowly. And it’s true. No matter how many times she tried to break the woman, she always came back. Dreams of illuminated stages, small snippets of classical music, the scent of coffee at 6 am in the morning, the feeling of satin against her skin, all of it brought too many jarring reminders of who Widowmaker was before.

 _But I am not Amélie Lacroix_ , Widowmaker thinks violently. _She is she, and I am I, there is no more space for her, there is no room in a body for two._

Amélie’s eyes crinkle with pity, and somehow, that infuriates Widowmaker even more. “Get out,” she hisses. “There is no room for you, ghost, you no longer exist. You are gone, you are dead to me, dead to the _world_.”

“The longer you go without your medications, the longer you will see me,” Amélie says slowly, enunciating each French word with care. “But those will kill you long before I die inside of you. Why don’t you try something else for once?”

“What else is there to try?” Widowmaker bites out, vicious and daring. The French rolls off her tongue with sharpness rather than the soft smoothness that the language holds, and she glares at Amélie with her hawk-gold eyes. Amélie regards her with her dark brown eyes in turn, and Widowmaker snaps, “Well?”

“I might have a deal to make with you,” Amélie says quietly. “You’re scared. Scared of dying, scared of me taking over the body that used to be mine. I will never leave you either. I’m trapped here more firmly than you are. But why don’t we work together? I give you peace of mind and clarity. I stop fighting against every single thought you have in our head. I stop giving you nightmares during your sleep. In return, you can look at the world with newer eyes. You can make your own opinion on whatever the world and its conspiracies are planning.”

“That cannot be all,” Widowmaker says dangerously. “There is a catch. Nothing is ever that easy.”

“You’re right,” Amélie agrees. “But you’re also wrong. It’s simple as that. No catches. I am not Talon; they are the ones who always add additional things to their contracts. You blindly followed Talon because they made you, and the medications kept you under control. But what happens when you can think for yourself? I’d like to see what happens too. Because in the end, what do you really want, Widowmaker?”

 _A body for my own, a mind for my own,_ Widowmaker thinks instinctively. Amélie smiles at her knowingly, and Widowmaker hates the smug look on her face. However, the idea is more tantalizing than Widowmaker wants it to be. She snaps her gaze back up to Amélie and asks, “What can you offer me that the medications do not?”

Amélie spreads her hands out, splaying her fingers just so, and says, “I can offer you the same thing. Clarity. Self-thought without my interference. Symbiosis, if you will. Your heart will beat faster, and that disgusting blue color to your skin will fade, but I doubt that it’ll make a difference.”

“That _difference_ means a sliver of a second more to find the heart of a target,” Widowmaker irritably replies. She takes a step back, ready to leave this mental headspace, but Amélie clears her throat softly.

“Oh no,” she says honestly. “That concentration has all been _you_ , ma chérie, not the drugs.”

Widowmaker pauses and hazards a glance back at her. Amélie only raises an eyebrow and snaps her fingers together. Suddenly, the spotlight shines down on them and they’re on a stage now. Amélie is dressed as Odette while Widowmaker is garbed in the darker colors of Odile, and the stage depicts a glass-smooth lakeside shore. Amélie lifts her arms and begins to twirl gracefully on pointe as she says, “The extra millisecond, I feel it too. Every time before a jump, before a critical move, before the crescendo of the music. Do you remember it too?”

Amélie tucks in her arms as she executes a perfect jump, and she lands impeccably. Her dark brown gaze slides over to Widowmaker, and Widowmaker lifts her chin up when she notices the attention. However, Widowmaker cannot deny it; she felt the distinct hollow gap of 1.2 seconds before the jump. Amélie sighs, “It’s undeniable. You were once part of me, and I was once part of you. I know what it feels like as well, and I can tell you that it is possible to carve out that part of a second for yourself before anything. You will just have to concentrate which you will be able to do on your own if you accept my offer.

Widowmaker fingers the fabric of her black tutu between the pads of her blue fingers as she contemplates the stage. _1.2 seconds_ , she instinctively thinks. Then, with a sudden surge, the faint music in the background crescendos into its brilliant melodies. _Tchaikovsky, that precocious bastard,_ Widowmaker thinks vengefully. Amélie inclines her head and waits for a response.

“Very well,” Widowmaker finally concedes. “I will entertain this _idea_ of yours for as long as it benefits me.” Her gold eyes flash as she warns, “But be careful. The minute I — we — falter, I will be reconditioned.”

“Then you’ll just have to play the great game,” Amélie counters. “Dance, Widowmaker, dance. _Bonne chance._ ” With her last words, the music fades away, and the spotlight dims until it only illuminates Amélie. The woman wanly smiles at Widowmaker before she smoothes down her Odette costume. She does one last graceful pirouette before she fades away into nothingness. The spotlight lies empty, and Widowmaker warily steps forward into the light. Her Odile costume does not gleam quite as brightly as the white of Odette’s skirt, but the black glistens like oil on water. Widowmaker sucks in a deep breath and shuts her eyes.

The next time she opens them, she sees the sterile white and silver of the Talon medbay.


	2. Chapter 2

“How are you feeling, Lacroix?” Doctor Moira O’Deorain asks her absently.

“I don’t feel,” Widowmaker replies simply as she stares up at the ceiling. “Isn’t that the point?”

“Mm, you could say that,” the doctor says as she snaps on a pair of sterile gloves. She takes a few mincing steps forward to examine Widowmaker. It’s the usual: heartbeat, eyesight, blood pressure, etcetera. The doctor was briskly and sharply efficient with every motion and action, and sometimes, Widowmaker could feel the sharp scratch of the doctor’s nails despite the gloves. “You’ve broken a lot of bones. It took a great deal of time to seal the cracks and repair the internal bleeding,” Dr. O’Deorain says conversationally. Widowmaker wouldn’t put it past the doctor to regularly hold conversations about broken bodies and corpses though. “But it’s all fixed thanks to Mercy,” she laughs wryly. “Little Miss Angela Ziegler and her nanobiotics saved you that day.”

“How long have I been out?” Widowmaker asks. She needs to know and then rearrange her schedule following from there. After all, she has a new agenda now.

“Oh, a week or two, give or take,” Dr. O’Deorain idly replies. She finishes up the last of the basic tests and says, “Well, it’s been a while since your last session with me. Shall we get you some more medications?” Without waiting for an answer, she strides to her lab counter and starts pulling out various bottles and syringes. Widowmaker knows this routine too well.

“ _ Non _ ,” she suddenly says with a rush of gusting breath.

Dr. O’Deorain turns around with a raise of a single, plucked eyebrow. “No?” she echoes as her duo-colored eyes narrow on her. Widowmaker feels like the entire world has been focused on  _ her _ with that dangerous gaze, but the expression on the doctor’s face remains blithe. No inkling of suspicion left. Widowmaker thanks her near-silent heart for not accelerating or betraying her, and she repeats, “No.”

“And why ever would you say that, Widowmaker?” the doctor says as she sets down the syringe. It’s half-opened, and the doctor’s gloves are still on. The canister of serum is still in the doctor’s hands. Widowmaker isn’t out of this yet.

“I have been performing on task,” she says. “And I have found that after rounds of treatment, my movements slower than I would like, and I am more lightheaded than I would prefer to be. My clarity and mental acuity are all still there, but my body moves at a slower pace than my mind prefers. If I show signs of relapse, please feel free to go ahead, doctor.”

Dr. O’Deorain purses her lips together before she sets the canister down and turns to a spare monitor. She snaps off her gloves with her teeth as she begins to look through Widowmaker’s records. Widowmaker has nothing to fear; she already knows that the symptoms that she described were all there. 

Formally, her condition was called bradycardia: a heart rate of less than 60 beats per minute. A heart rate that was too slow and offered places for problems like dizziness or lightheadedness. Some of the stimulants in her serum was meant to counteract those side-effects, but Widowmaker privately thinks that it might just be the work of a stubborn Amélie who refuses to be ousted from her head. Their head.  But Widowmaker does not want the voice in her head to be silenced nor her freedom of thought to be quashed quite yet. No. She wants  _ answers _ before that happens.

“I may have to alter the serum then,” the doctor hums as she taps a long-nailed finger against her chin. “A shame, I was hoping to spend more time working on some regenerative cell research I was doing.”

“I am fine,” Widowmaker insists. “I have shown no signs of faltering, and my missions have all been clean and impeccable. The few that have gone awry are thanks to the mistakes of others rather than me.”

“Very well,” Dr. O’Deorain concedes. “Then, final question: do you have any lingering feelings or doubts? How are you feeling lately?” 

The question must seem so innocent to any bystander, to any regular patient with a regular doctor. Widowmaker already knows the implications of that question. She knows that Amélie has been mentally reconditioned; after all, that was the process that gave birth to  _ her _ . 

“I don’t feel, doctor,” Widowmaker repeats. “Everything is smooth and silent.”

Wrong. She still wakes up in the middle of the night with Tchaikovsky’s  _ Swan Lake _ ringing in her ears.

“Well, if that’s the case,” Dr. O’Deorain says. “Then I believe you’re free to leave.” Without another word, the doctor abruptly turns back to her own personal experiments and work. Widowmaker pauses for a second before she leaves the medbay to look back at her. Moira only bends even further over her work, now utterly absorbed in it. Widowmaker exhales a short, cold breath before she steps out silently into the Talon base. 

She stops by the armory for her sniper rifle. The doors slide open to reveal lockers neatly lining the walls and benches in the center of the room. The armory itself opens up wider towards the back to form a kind of workshop area for repairs and small projects. Widowmaker makes a beeline to her own weapons locker, but in a small nook, she notices Akande Ogundimu in a smaller nook. He studies various datapads of the information retrieved from the remnants of the Nepal mission, and omnic parts litter the bench by his side. His giant golden gauntlet lies atop the bench as well, and it gleams in the white light of the workshop.

He glances up when Widowmaker purposefully clicks her heels to make her footsteps louder. “You’re conscious,” he says simply. 

“I am,” Widowmaker returns as she unlocks her weapon locker. Inside, her precious rifle waits inside. It’s battered and scratched from when the girl slammed her into the walls with her mech, but it appears to remain in somewhat functional condition. Thankfully, it doesn’t look like anyone tampered with it yet. Widowmaker prefers it that way, and she knows how to restore it back to its former glory. “And you?” she says as she pulls it out. She looks at Ogundimu and comments, “I heard that you jumped off a balcony.”

“I was in a rush,” he admits. “Too caught up in the moment and the thrill. You know it. The mistake will not happen again. I will have to say this again at the mission debriefing tomorrow.”

Widowmaker only hums a small sound of agreement. She may not be able to feel much, but she knows that thrill, that heady  _ rush _ , when she makes the perfect kill. Headshots always feel so satisfying. 

“Why do you think they made omnics to look like us?” Ogundimu suddenly asks as he brushes his fingers across an omnic faceplate on the worktable.

Widowmaker blinks and stares at Ogundimu. Such an unwarranted question, but she supposes that she must answer. “Because humanity is selfish,” Widowmaker replies. To her surprise, the words flow out of her mouth like water, and she continues, “We play with wires like we are gods, and we shaped our creations to look like us out of sheer vanity.”

Akande pauses and looks up at her. Dark brown, almost black, eyes meet gold, and he quietly says, “That was not a response I was expecting.” Widowmaker does not know if that is a good or bad thing.  _ Bad _ , she mentally decides as she analyzes the glint in Doomfist’s eyes.

“On your toes, Widowmaker,” Amélie whispers in her ear. “Don’t project so much on a broken omnic.”

“What did you expect?” Widowmaker scoffs as she tries to ignore the prickling feeling at the back of her mind. “Humanity is vain and selfish; that is our hubris.”

“Interesting perspective,” he hums. “You are correct. Our arrogance towards the things we made led to nemesis, our downfall. But we evolve to meet these dangers, these problems, and we grow as a whole. So, really, was it worth it to make them?” He hooks his gauntlet up to his cybernetic-laced stump of an arm with practiced ease just before he crushes the faceplate like paper in his fist. He looks up before he finishes, “Yes.”

“Now, what do you think we should do next?” Ogundimu suddenly asks.

Widowmaker arches an eyebrow and asks, “What, do you not have a single idea?”

Ogundimu starts to clean up his workspace as he replies, “I’d like to know what  _ you _ think first.”

“We move on with the plan,” Widowmaker says in a clipped tone. “We may not have an omnium anymore. The monastery will improve its security now, but there are other methods, other ways, to turn the battle in our favor. Everything has  _ always _ been in our favor.”

“I admire a woman like you,” Ogundimu decisively says. He stacks up the datapads in a neat pile, and with each datapad he adds, he lists off, “You are beholden to your goals. Unstoppable. Inexorable. It is admirable. You are one of Talon’s greatest assets. Despite failures, you continue on.” He completes his stack and meets Widowmaker’s gaze straight on as he comments, “Like I have mentioned before, Mondatta’s assassination was one that I truly admired.”

“Thank you,” Widowmaker says. The atmosphere of the conversation feels different now, charged and dangerous, and she now acutely feels like she’s playing with fire now. However, she’s a master of games, of lies and threads woven in the dark. “That was one of my finest kills,” Widowmaker reminisces. She blatantly ignores the sting that Amélie sends her way.

Widowmaker suddenly wants to leave the workshop; the look in Ogundimu’s eyes makes her feel like her newfound clarity is visible to the entire world. Rationally, she knows that it’s not possible. She’s still the person that she always was and she still behaves in mostly the same manner. Her eyes might dart around quicker, and her skin might seem less blue with each passing week, but that could be attributed to the lack of the drugs. In fact, Widowmaker thinks that she could deceive everyone into thinking that the mental reconditioning stage was now officially complete. Still, she decides on taking her rifle out and repairing and cleaning it in the privacy of her own room. 

Amélie stirs in the back of her mind as Widowmaker heads out of the armory. “I suppose that little observation applies to you and I as well,” Widowmaker wryly thinks. “They made me as a tool in their own shape, and now we rise. We will rise above them.”

“I never asked for a bit of it,” Amélie indignantly replies. “But here we are. Careful with your steps, you don’t want to fall mid-dance.”

“Trust me,” Widowmaker replies smoothly. “I do not trap myself in my own web of lies.”

“Truly a black widow then,” Amélie acidly replies. “How  _ amusing.” _

“You are the one who suggested the idea in the first place,” Widowmaker tosses back. 

She rounds the corner and makes her way to the dormitory areas of the base. However, she finds Reaper at the main door about to go in the halls as well. He nods at her, and in return, she nods back. Instead of trailing to his own quarters, Reaper follows Widowmaker. She quietly wishes he would stay out of her way because his presence alone makes Amélie sigh things like  _ Gabriel Reyes _ and  _ he was a good man _ in the back of her head. 

“So, you alright?” Reaper asks roughly. 

Widowmaker nods and says frankly, “The Nepal mission went poorly. I should have been more careful.”

“No shit,” Reaper interrupts. Widowmaker gives him a withering glare, and he shakes his head at her. 

Amélie remembers the man who was just Gabe to his closest friends, tired and worn and rough at the edges but well-meaning at the core. Widowmaker thinks that some traces of that core might be left considering how he’s hounding after her and asking after her health like this. If that trace is still there, then how much of Gabriel Reyes is left? 

Reaper escorts her to her dorm without another word, and when they reach it, Widowmaker nods at Reaper. It’s not quite a thank you, but it’s better than opening the door and leaving him alone in the hall without another word. Just because she wasn’t Amélie Lacroix didn’t mean that she was completely devoid of any sense of manners or propriety. Reaper pauses, and although Widowmaker can’t see his face underneath that skull mask of his, she thinks that he wants to say something more.

Neither of them have to say anything though because the air suddenly changes. It isn’t a change in temperature or anything as obvious as that, but there’s a certain kind of thrum in the air that wasn’t there before. Widowmaker hefts Widow’s Kiss in her hands and she sighs,  _ “Allez, montre-toi. _ Come on, show yourself.” She adds the English as almost an after-thought because the person she has in mind clearly doesn’t speak French.

Sure enough, Sombra sizzles into view, and she bends down to grab a slim translocator stuck to the corner of her door with a quick, flicking motion.  _ “Hola, araña,” _ she says slyly as she waves her luminescent fingers.  Reaper growls low in his throat, and Widowmaker hums noncommittally. Sombra just takes it in stride as she says, “So, I heard you got beaten up in Nepal.”

Why is this such a common subject? “So,” Widowmaker decides to mimic. “I heard you lost key targets in Nepal.”

“Ah, getting a little petty now, are we?” Sombra tosses right back. She slings an arm around Reaper’s shoulders and says, “They weren’t the important ones anyways. The important thing is that I got the omnium’s data in the end. The cores would have been nice, but it’s better than nothing.”

Irritation builds and clots in Widowmaker’s mind, and she snaps, “And the Shimadas? You had both in one place.”

“And they’ll continue to be in one place: Overwatch,” Sombra says in a more serious manner. “Same with the MEKA girl. Don’t worry,  _ araña _ , you can execute the rest of Talon’s plan perfectly later.”

As much as Widowmaker hates to admit it, Sombra is right. She thinks about how convenient it is to have every single target in one place: Overwatch. Amélie loudly protests in the back of her mind, and Widowmaker sees flashes of memory behind her eyelids with every single blink of her eyes. A pristine office, a woman with a tattoo around her eye making tea, a man dressed in blue, the scent of roses, laughter that peals loudly in the air. Something in Widowmaker’s eyes must have revealed her thoughts and turmoil since Sombra tilts her head and examines her with a closer eye. 

_ “Araña, _ you doing alright?” Sombra asks in a lower tone. 

Widowmaker bristles and snaps back, “I am.”

Reaper takes a step forward just as Widowmaker takes a step back.

Widowmaker freezes just after the step is done. Amélie Lacroix pounds at the back of her head, but it’s too late. Widowmaker does not have second thoughts. Widowmaker does not step down.

Before Reaper or Sombra can say a single word, she opens her door and slides more footsteps in so that she’s safely within the perimeter of her room.  _ Glissade _ , Amélie hums in the back of her mind.  _ Shut up _ , Widowmaker hisses back.

Instead, she curtly says, “I will see you at tomorrow’s mission debriefing.” She shuts the door and refuses to shut her eyes until she hears the secure click of the door. Just to make sure, she locks it. Her heart hammers in her ribcage — a strange sensation — and she hisses out, “ _ Amélie _ . Control yourself before you get us killed.”

She swears that she can picture Amélie Lacroix on that mental stage, dressed in her gleaming white tutu. Amélie shrugs and says quietly, “I am not the one making decisions for you. Glissade, Widowmaker, glissade.”

Glissade. The term takes a while to find purchase in her memory, but the definition comes to her still. A small, in-between step used to link other steps together. It was barely a step, perhaps even a small jump, but it was a link for other things. A plie in fifth position, a slide of a foot into a degage side, 20 degrees off the floor and then pushing off. Widowmaker sucks in a sharp breath as she whispers, “And then the supporting leg quickly closes back into fifth position.”

Amélie chuckles, “I remember having to memorize so many different terms, so many different steps and dances. You are simply learning to dance, Widowmaker, and we are  _ good _ at that.” Her eyes glitter as she prods, “Weren’t you the one saying that you didn’t get tangled up in your own web? Watch your step. Connect your words, slide, push off, and leap when you have to.”

Widowmaker ignores her and settles down on a chair. She swings Widow’s Kiss onto her lap and methodically begins to dismantle and clean it. It’s a mindless process that has every part slip out and back into its proper place. She knows that she herself is a piece that fits into no place at all, but she wills herself to focus back on the task. She doesn’t need to think about that. Not yet, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew looks like i'm sticking to the schedule :") thanks for reading and be sure to let me know what you thought about the new chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

“How do you expect to make up for your failure?”  


Widowmaker bristles at the pointed words. She does not  _ fail. _ Failure is only a delay of her inevitable success. Instead, she digs her nails into the palms of her hands as she waits for the council finish droning on. Instead of chairs, video screens circle around the table, and only five chairs are set out on the other end.

Akande Ogundimu. Moira O’Deorain. Reaper. Sombra.

And of course, herself.

There is a new face in the council: an aging and wizened Japanese man from the Shimada clan. His name is Hidenori Shimada, and frankly, Widowmaker has a very poor opinion of him. He constantly huffs about a number of things and criticizes the way Talon runs their operations. Widowmaker thinks that the man has spent too many years without obstruction in leadership. But then again, who would stand against that Shimada elder? He was the one to order that Shimada boy’s death and the one to order the manhunt for the Shimada heir. There is no one else of higher rank in the Shimada clan to oppose his main decisions now. Truly a shame. She’d much rather have Hanzo Shimada in the fold than this useless, aging lump of flesh.

Shimada leans in forward and folds his hands as he sneers, “You have failed to capture both my errant heir and kill the boy. And you, Widowmaker. You failed to kill both Hanzo and that irritating Korean girl at both Lijiang Tower and Nepal. How do you expect to make up for your failure?”

Widowmaker narrows her golden eyes and snaps, “And may I point out,  _ monsieur _ , that your agents were the first ones to fail at killing the girl? Because of  _ your _ initial failure, we now have to mop up  _ your _ troubles. I will remind you that Talon had no intention to deal with MEKA, and we were going to establish a certain  _ understanding  _ with them in regards to conflict and development. It is the Shimada clan’s business, and now,  _ we _ must handle the affair as well.”

Maximilien tilts his head, and behind him, Widowmaker can spot the window showing the perfect view of Monaco. Then, he straightens up and Monaco blinks out of view. “Widowmaker is correct. We intended to establish a mutual agreement with MEKA regarding combat operations. South Korea’s business with Japan was not our concern but a Shimada one. However, There will always be other options,” he says quietly. His voice is flat and modulated perfectly to be bland. Widowmaker suspects that he’s doing it on purpose. What an advantage to be an omnic in that case. If only she could do the same for herself.

Sanjay Korpal leans back in his seat somewhere off in a clean and sterile Vishkar office. “But the best option is now off the table,” he complains. “The omnium could have advanced our plans by  _ so much _ , and we just let it slip out of our hands. The monastery will have higher defenses, and it’ll be harder to break in.”

He glances at Sombra, but before he can say a word, she shrugs and says, “Were you done talking? I told you already. That place has firewalls that take time to get through.”

“You. The world’s best hacker,” Sanjay replies dryly. “Laughable.”

Real anger flickers in Sombra’s eyes, almost too quick to notice, but Widowmaker sees it within a single beat of her heart. 1.2 seconds. Anger. Rage. Fury. All of that gets tamped down in favor of scorn. She shrugs and says, “I needed time. The rest of the team didn’t buy me enough. You sent an entire army, but a few people managed to destroy them all. What does that say about _you_ and _your_ tech? What does that say about _your_ people?”

Sanjay looks like he’s ready to pick a fight, but Doomfist interrupts loudly, “ _ Enough. _ We are wasting time. The mission was a failure. We will recoup and focus on a different aspect of our plan.” He eyes everyone in the room as he says slowly and clearly, “We will continue on with our main objectives. We may not have the software from the omnium, but we have a contact in North America with some stolen goods from Helix Security. We will send a covert mission down to retrieve the payload since the contact is… Compromised.”

Widowmaker internally sighs. The phrase “covert mission” almost always means a mission that requires her. She may not look conventional with her blue skin, but she is silent and deadly. Also, moving at night helps her blend in more. People tend to not pay as much attention at night. Not that they usually did anyways.

“Where exactly in North America?” Reaper asks as he props his elbows up on the table. His clawed gloves twist together to form a rest for his head, and he leans forward, eyeing every single person at the table. Some mist curls around his mask before it retracts and resolidifies underneath his mask. 

“The American Southwest,” Maximilien answers. “We will be sending you, Sombra, and Widowmaker to Texas first. A rental car will be waiting for you, and you’ll track the courier down. It seems like they’re traveling along Route 66.”

“Wonderful,” Widowmaker thinks to herself. “Another mission with those  _ fools. _ ”

Amélie laughs, “It could be worse,  _ la veuve noire. _ You could be on an operating table with serums injected into your veins again.”

“At this point, I’d take the medications,” Widowmaker shoots back.

Amélie laughs again, and the sound rings in her ears like a leftover echo. “You’re lying,” she says before she quiets again.

The meeting adjourns soon after that. Widowmaker quickly reviews the mission details on her tablet before she saves it to her separate files. It looks like she’ll be taking a road trip with the so-called fools along Route 66 of the United States. This combines a great deal of things that she dislikes: dust, long car rides, fools, and idiot Americans. She’ll have to pack a few extra things in preparation for the mission then.

“Well,” Moira says immediately after walking out of the council room. “That was a failure.”

Widowmaker glances over at her and snaps, “You do not need to say the obvious.” 

Sombra only laughs and shoots her an absolutely amused smile before she comments, “Someone needs to say it.” 

“Why am I in another team with you?” Widowmaker asks as she rolls her eyes and speeds her step up. Her heels click against the floor, but Sombra, Moira, and Reaper only lengthen their strides. No use getting rid of these idiots then. 

“I don’t know,  _ araña _ ,” Sombra hums. “Do you not like me? Hey, Reaper, do you think Widowmaker likes us?”

“No,” Reaper flatly returns. Widowmaker can’t tell what his expression is like, but judging from Amélie’s memories, he’s probably delightfully amused by this as well. Her fingers itch for her rifle, but it’s absent. Even her venom mines, her grappling hook, everything. All of it was already stowed away for shipping in a small suitcase with special shielding. Her blouse and trousers do nothing to assuage her fidgeting fingers.

“Well, as you already know,” Moira sighs as she waves her hand lightly. “I’ve been assigned to you dolts as your medical specialist for the next mission. Needless to say, I’ll be located at base. Message me when you need something.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Reaper asks.

Moira blinks and says in a rather astonished tone, “Heavens, no, who do you think I am?”

“Many things, none of them good,” Reaper growls back.

Moira splays her hand across her chest and says, “You wound me. Regardless, I have important research to do here. Do ring me up when you need me. Which you will. Constantly. I’ll send a few health packs to the hangar. Keep them on you.” She points at Sombra and says, “I’m appointing her as the main health pack person. Go to her if you have trouble, not me first.”

“Didn’t you say you wanted us to message you when things went bad?” Sombra asks dryly. “And is this really what a healer should be doing?”

“No,” Moira returns. “Because I am not a healer. I am a researcher, a scientist, and an advisor. I am not your babysitter that you come crawling to whenever you want.”

“Disappointing,” Reaper says with a huffy sigh.

“As ever,” Moira lightly replies. She straightens the collar of her lab coat and her button-down shirt before she glances at Widowmaker. It’s the same searching look, and Widowmaker wills her face into a blank and empty expression. There is nothing that the doctor will find now except for scorn. 

Reaper’s only response is a grunt before he falls silent. Moira then waves at them before she turns down the hallway in the direction of her lab. Everyone else, however, stays on their track towards the hangar. The silence lasts until Sombra pipes up, “So, the American Southwest. Just a simple payload mission, nothing hard. We can’t fuck this one up.” 

Widowmaker ominously replies, “I’m sure you imbeciles can.”

“Oh,  _ araña,  _ don’t be such a downer,” Sombra says as she flicks Widowmaker’s shoulder. 

Widowmaker opens her mouth to retort back a snappy reply, but Reaper interrupts her by saying brusquely, “Let’s get to work.”

Widowmaker stops by her room to pick up a few more things that she thinks she’ll need before she goes back to the hangar. Sombra and Reaper are already there waiting for her, and once more, she sighs to herself. Another mission. Another day. It’s just a shame that they can’t fly directly to the location that the payload was last scanned at. They had to be quiet and covert. Retrace the courier’s steps. Texas was probably the closest that they could get without alerting any watchful eyes. And in North America, there were too many eyes constantly watching.  Perhaps that old soldier was out there with his crimson-eyed visor. Widowmaker cocks her head and wonders how many shots it would take her to kill him. Not a clean and satisfying one, unfortunately. The man was too keen and sharp-eyed to let a single bullet take him down. He also had a frustrating number of biotic fields to help him. She shakes her head and follows Reaper and Sombra to their waiting plane. 

Widowmaker has to eschew her combat suit in favor of wide-brimmed hats and sunglasses with long, fluttering dresses that hide her blue-toned skin. They’re things made out of chiffon, silk, and light cotton and muslin to ease the heat and dust, but they feel too delicate against her skin. Her job is not the kind of job that takes such fabrics so easily. They tear under the slightest bit of stress, and she wants her reinforced, bullet-proof suit back.

Reaper keeps much of the same demeanor as Widowmaker. He almost seems sullen with the way he forces his body into dark, black attire in spite of the hot and humid weather in order to hide his mists and shadows. Instead of his usual hooded cloak, he dons on a black trench coat and keeps armor on underneath his clothing. Widowmaker looks at his outfit with jealousy;  _ he _ gets to wear armor while she does not. Of course, she doesn’t have a body to bind together, so she doesn’t have any other excuse. 

On the other hand, Sombra is a complete contrast to them both. She’s in high spirits for the  _ entire _ trip. She slides on neon-rimmed sunglasses and dons tank-tops that are in equally bright colors. She even wears terrible cargo shorts that physically make Widowmaker shudder. She calls shotgun nearly every time and while she’s in the front seat, she blasts loud Latin songs. Their rhythm and vibrant Spanish lyrics resonate in the small, cramped space inside the car. Widowmaker swears that they worm their way into her head and make her near-constant migraine worse. At some point, Widowmaker threatens to play Despacito if Sombra doesn't turn the volume down. The volume quickly ratchets down and even changes to a gentle French ballad instead. Widowmaker settles back into her seat with a show of aggravation.

Reaper drives most of the time, and whenever he pulls into a gas station, he complains about not being able to go out and stretch his legs. Instead, they have to pull over on the side of the road at night to let Reaper out without arousing attention. They’ve formed a system by this point. Reaper pulls into the gas station. Widowmaker pulls her hat lower on her head and flips her long hair behind her back to hide her blue shoulders and back that the dress reveals. She’s responsible for getting gas for the car while Sombra bounces into the gas station store and buys an unbelievable amount of snacks. Sombra’s also the one to pay for the gas and distracts everyone in the store with her piercing voice and loud attire. It’s a system that they grow used to over the long and hot days. 

At one point, instead of buying Widowmaker bottled water, Sombra tosses a can over to her. Widowmaker wonders why Americans would put water in a can before she looks down and sees the word “Lacroix” emblazoned across it in colorful letters. Her face crumples into a scowl and she almost crushes the can in her hand. Sombra backs away from her, hands raised up in front of her, and says cheerily, “Isn’t that funny? I thought you might like it.”

“I do not,” Widowmaker replies back icily. Meanwhile, Amélie stirs at the back of her mind and Widowmaker has to fight the memories that rise up at the mere sight of the name. Lacroix is a name that belongs to a man dead in the grave. Widowmaker sighs and settles back down in the car seat. After a long pause, she pops the can open and takes a sip.

She actually likes it.

Sombra continues to buy her Lacroix after that.

At some point, Reaper starts complaining about the lack of edible salads and bodies. Widowmaker shrugs and asks, “Would you like me to kill someone for you to consume?” He shakes his head and grumbles something absolutely incomprehensible under his breath. At the next gas station, Sombra buys a bag of gummy hamburgers and picks out all the green bits that are supposed to be lettuce. She then throws them at Reaper. Widowmaker doesn’t admit it but she catches the ones that Sombra misses and throws them at Reaper too.

And in all honesty, some of the snacks that Sombra buys aren’t  _ bad _ . She reluctantly eats some when hunger rears its ugly head at the bottom of her stomach, and some of them are… Tolerable. Sombra cackles when she finds out because  _ Sombra always finds out about everything. _

Widowmaker grits her teeth and snaps, “They are not  _ good. _ I said that they were  _ tolerable. _ There is a clear difference.”

“Oh,  _ araña _ , there’s no need to lie!” Sombra crows back. “We already know!”

“American snacks are  _ offensively _ salty or sweet,” Widowmaker complains. “Some are simply tolerable because they are less offensive than others! Have you ever had real cuisine?  _ That _ is food worthy to eat, food that is much less than this garbage that companies package up with too much air left inside the bags!”

“Well,” Reaper comments. “You can’t really find something like chocolate gateaux in the middle of nowhere. Might as well eat what we’ve got.”

Sombra turns around in her seat and waves a moon-pie at Widowmaker as she sticks her tongue out. “Just say you liked it! It isn’t that hard!” she laughs.

Reaper drives on in the quiet night. They pass by cacti, but they only look like blurs in the rush of the car. He steps on the pedal, and they accelerate forward, leaving behind a trail of dust and an additional wear on the old road. In the loud rush just after stepping on the gas, Widowmaker mouths out, “I liked it.” She can’t tell why she does it. Neither can Amélie.

Already on this mission, Widowmaker can feel the differences between previous missions and now. Her head feels lighter, and her mind is quicker to soften.  _ Weaken, _ she corrects mentally. She has never been this yielding before. Half of her hates the way Sombra can easily wrap her up in another game, another teasing conversation, and half of her revels in the way she feels more alive. Painful, but alive. Her hunger comes snapping at her heels quicker now, but her heart beats at the same rhythm. She even burns her skin in the bright light of the sun now. That never seemed to happen before.

Widowmaker tries to calculate how long she’s stopped taking her medications and going to her reconditioning sessions. She entertained the idea after the failure at Lijiang Tower and tried half-heartedly, but she only fully accepted Amélie’s offer after Nepal. Less than a year but more than six months. She turns in her seat to stare out the window morosely. 

There is much more to consider about her choice now.

The road trip doesn’t last long enough for her to gather her thoughts on it though. Finally, they arrive at a desolate canyon. Large cliffs rise up around them, and tall boulders lie around on the rust-red and scorched brown dust. The wind barely blows here anymore, and the sun beats down on all of them, forcing sweat to bead on their brows. Everyone gets out of the car, and Reaper’s the last to leave. He slams the door shut on the care and quietly whispers, “Deadlock.” 

Widowmaker whips around just in time to hear in, but Sombra wanders too far to hear it properly. Amélie rears her head up, and they both see one of her memories. 

_ A man — no, a boy, too young, too wounded — waiting in the chair outside her husband’s office. The frequent visitor from a department that Amélie always intends to ask about but always forgets to ask about. He came from a canyon, that boy, and he says only one word about it. Deadlock. Deadlock. Deadlock. Amélie doesn’t understand enough at the time, but she knows enough now. _

“How do you remember such things?” Widowmaker demands mentally. “You remember too many things with too much clarity.”

“Being trapped in your own body and mind offers you a lot of time to think and sift through your memories,” Amélie says with a slight shrug. “Much more convenient and easy to do so now that you’ve taken over the main bodily functions and all that.”

Widowmaker turns back to look at Reaper and wishes that she could see his expression underneath his mask. At least then, she could analyze and predict his next movements and actions better. 

They pull on their combat attire. Widowmaker can’t help but let out a soft exhale of relief when she feels the combat suit settle on her skin. It’s familiar and she knows that it’ll do its fair share of protection. Just another shield against the outside world despite how flimsy it may look.

Tumbleweeds roll along the deadened road, and Reaper starts trudging towards an old building in the distance. As they get closer, Widowmaker can see the dust gathering on the cracked windows. The old chrome finish on the diner flakes when she brushes her fingertips across it, and the wind finally picks up to add its lonely sound across the barren landscape. Reaper breaks inside the diner with ease, and Sombra and Widowmaker slip through the door after him as well.

“The fries here used to be too greasy,” Reaper comments as he stands on the checkered tile floor. “The milkshakes weren’t very good either.”

“You must be so old to remember what the food was like here,” Sombra cackles. “Old man!” She hops behind the counter and bats a few empty ketchup and mustard bottles around. Widowmaker rolls her eyes and turns away to examine the rest of the diner. Sombra already knows Reaper’s precise age, and Widowmaker could always ask Amélie when Reaper’s birthday was from the days when he was called Gabriel Reyes.

Reaper shrugs and replies cryptically, “I only remember this place because someone important to me thought this place was important too.” 

“So, you care about people? What a surprise,” Sombra tosses back as she clutches her heart dramatically.

Reaper sighs, “We all do.”

“Probably not Widowmaker,” Sombra dryly says.

Widowmaker narrows her eyes, and instinctively, Amélie runs a scornful hiss across her mind. Before she can stop her tongue from moving, she blurts out, “No.” 

“Wait, what?” Sombra asks as she turns to look at Widowmaker. In the shadows of the old diner, her neon clothing seems to glow even brighter, and the cybernetics inlaid on Sombra’s skin thrum. 

Widowmaker swallows, and her tongue feels like stiff wood, struggling to form words. “I care,” she says in a stilted fashion. Half of her scoffs at the phrase.  _ Amélie  _ cares, not her. But the other half of her that hasn’t been choked out by medications insists that she  _ does. _ Not for the same reasons that Amélie Lacroix ever did, but she  _ cares _ .

“You’re not supposed to,” Reaper says suspiciously as he rounds on her. He brings himself up to his full height to tower over her, and Widowmaker glares back at him. Once more, she wishes that his mask were off but for a different reason: so that she can punch him right in his face without bruising her knuckles against the burnished white plating.

Sombra clears her throat and interrupts them both by calling out loudly, “Not the time for this! I think I found the body of the original courier.”

Widowmaker lets out an exasperated sigh before she peers over the counter. Sure enough, there’s a broken and bent omnic body there. It’s melted and mangled beyond the point where it’s nearly unidentifiable. Only the tiny Talon insignia is left unburnt. Reaper jumps over the counter and pries the main plating and faceplate off the omnic’s carapace. The memory banks and optic sensors are gone. There’s nothing left to salvage. 

Sombra sighs with disappointment and says, “Well, on the bright side, no one took the payload. I ran a scan and both the key and the payload are concealed in and near the diner.”

Widowmaker hoists Widow’s Kiss up and clicks her visor in place. “Let us go then,” she says.

Reaper stares at her silently before he melts away into mist. Irritation spikes in her throat, both at herself and at Amélie, but she turns away to focus at the task at hand. She can feel the start of that familiar thrill of the hunt, and she viciously hopes for some proper targets tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen, road trip fun times with the gang are good times !! sdkksdjskdj anyhow, i took this chapter as an excuse to write it down :") let me know what you thought of the chapter in the comments + thank you for reading! i'll try to update more quickly ;u;


	4. Chapter 4

She’s disappointed at the fact that there’s no one there to shoot immediately when she steps out of the diner. 

The payload comes in on a hovering platform with a tarpaulin tightly wrapped on top. Widowmaker examines it, and Sombra sidles up to her. When she glances over at Sombra, she’s not surprised to see that familiar neon purple lining the inside of her bulletproof coat. Sombra always did have a taste for neon colors. Cybernetic light gleams from her skin and nails, and she gives Widowmaker a wink and a hand signal. Widowmaker simply nods and grapples up to a ledge jutting out from the canyon cliff for a better view. 

There’s nothing to see so far, and although she can’t see the abandoned warehouse they’re supposed to take it from here, she sees no obvious danger so far. There’s a sharp bend in the road that might be a blind spot for enemies to exploit, and she repeats it over the crackling comm. From her perch, she sees Sombra fade into invisibility while Reaper sits down on the payload and gets it moving.  As Widowmaker waits and watches, she wonders just how the original courier ended up how it did. It shut down, wounded and broken in the diner, and Talon received the S.O.S. too late to make it in time. She supposes the courier had been out of commission for possibly one week before she and the others arrived. Vigilantes or Deadlock gang members or even old Overwatch agents. Any factor could be responsible here, and Talon refused to take chances. After all, it’s not every day that you manage to get your hands on stolen weapons, tech,  _ and _ software from Helix Security.

So, that’s why Talon’s best are here. The payload has to be escorted, and it must escorted  _ well.  _ She might say what she likes about Sombra or Reaper, but the fact remains that they are some of Talon’s best operatives. She is one and the same: Talon’s best sniper and one of the finest covert agents in the field. Her initial training — Amélie liked to call it “torture” — was grueling, but it had its results.

The payload gets to the first checkpoint without any issue, and Widowmaker sends a signal to the nearest Talon base from her watchpoint. “Payload on first checkpoint, no issues or targets sighted,” she murmurs softly into her comm. With a tap of her finger, she sends it off and sighs, wishing for  _ something _ more interesting than this.

She gets her wish when four bullets, one after the other with alarming speed, slam into her body and visor. The first cracks the lens of her right eye, the second cracks the frame of her visor entirely, the third slams into her glove where her grappling hook is stored, and the last one slams into her case of venom mines. All four bullets effectively disable her, and she reels from the impact. Gas from her broken venom mines rises up and makes her eyes water, and she coughs hard, trying to get the stinging sensation out of her throat and off her skin. Widowmaker flails, trying to stumble away.  Her vision’s shot, and she scrabbles at her face with her free hand, trying to get the shards of glass and metal out of her way. Thankfully, her eyes aren’t damaged at all, but now, her visor is unusable. With an angry shake of her head, she tosses the remainder of her visor to the ground and ducks behind an outcropping of rock.

“Enemies on our radar,” she hisses into the main comm line. “We need to defend the objective!”

“Affirmative,” Reaper growls back while Sombra simply just cackles into the comm. 

Widowmaker examines her grappling hook and finds that it’s utterly unusable as well. She turns on the main comm line and snaps, “They shot down my visor and hook. I’m compromised, continue on with the mission with caution.” The only response she gets is Sombra’s rough laughter echoing across the comm line.  Widowmaker stares at the next available perch: the top of an old building. With her grappling hook, she could’ve made the leap, but now, she’s forced to run down a winding tunnel carved into the cliffs and come down to the ground. She’s still relatively far from the payload, but it’s close enough to hear the sounds of fighting and loud voices. She can’t even zoom in with her visor, but the familiar colors and figures are enough.

A blue jacket with 76 emblazoned on the back and a familiar visor that glows red in the light of the brilliant sunset.   
A wide-brimmed cowboy hat with a serape, rust-red as the dust that settles over this part of Route 66. 

A scowl deepens across Widowmaker’s face, and she tilts her head to try and hear them. Thankfully, the wind blows in her direction and carries their words a little farther. It helps that they’re not even trying to hide. “Hold on, let me gear up a better line so you can hear,” Sombra mutters into the comm. A few crackling and popping noises sizzle over the comm, but then, Widowmaker hears everything perfectly.

“Do you know how exhausting it was to travel with you?” Soldier 76 grunts out as he slams down a biotic field directly by the payload.

Jesse McCree rolls on the ground and reaches the perimeter of the field before he indignantly and loudly snaps, “Hey!”

Reaper tries to float in with his tendrils of mist, but Soldier 76 physically swats and beats him back with his pulse rifle. “You play old western music all the time,” he grinds back at McCree. “ _ Country music.” _

McCree shoots off a couple bullets in what Widowmaker knows to be Sombra’s general direction before he says, “At least I don’t play corny music like yours!”

“Corny?” Have you listened to your own??” Soldier 76 incredulously says. He pauses as he launches one of his rockets which narrowly misses Reaper and lands solidly in the cliff. Dust and rock shards spray over the worn road as Soldier 76 finishes, “Country music is from the fifth circle of hell or something like that.”

“More like the ninth,” Reaper casually says before he dissolves into mist and tries to twist around and expose Soldier’s back to his shotguns. 

Widowmaker raises her sniper rifle and carefully peers through the scope. It’s not like her visor, but she doesn’t  _ need _ her visor to be good at her job. She lines up her aim with McCree’s jugular, but just before she pulls the trigger, he glances around and dives for cover behind the payload. She swears under her breath and flicks her aim over to Soldier. He must have noticed something off since he reaches out and positions himself so that Reaper is in the way of her shot. Although he might be mist, there’ll still be some damage done if Widowmaker’s bullet goes through him and they don’t have the time or energy to waste on something like that.

It’s a fight that involves her constant movement from place to place since those two always move and interfere with her sightlines. She almost wishes she had her visor back since she could activate the infrasight and find their positions exactly. However, even she cannot shoot through boulders and walls and payloads. They’re just so damn clever about the way they position themselves and their enemies, and with her grappling hook out of the picture, there is little else Widowmaker can do. However, she wonders  _why_ Reaper and Sombra are taking so long to kill off the interference.

Irritation burns at the back of her tongue, and Amélie whispers, “Those two are better at dancing than you are, more aware of their surroundings.”

“No,” Widowmaker hisses. “I am  _ better.” _

She dives for a different spot immediately after shooting a shot deliberately placed in the wrong place. Just as she expected, McCree dishes and changes his position to the place Widowmaker has her aim placed next. He moves more quickly than she expected though, and the bullet hits his metal arm and ricochets towards the payload.

Over the comm, Sombra finally sighs and says, “Okay, fun game, everyone, but now it’s time for the real show.” Widowmaker squints and sees Sombra glow just a tad bit brighter before she leaps up and throws a tiny chip in the air that numbs the entire world before she cries out,  _ “¡Apagando las luces!” _ The world explodes into purple light, and Widowmaker stumbles back from the impact. Although her hook and visor are both broken, she still feels like her ears are somewhat muffled and her senses seem tinny and muffled. Only Sombra’s voice comes in clearly through as she says, “Let’s have a little chat.”

Widowmaker spot Reaper trudge over to her, and for once, he doesn’t dissolve away into mist. When he gets close enough for her to see plainly, he beckons to her: a simple gesture that irks Widowmaker. She angrily says, “ _ What  _ are you doing?”

“ _ Lo siento, araña,”  _ Sombra says. “Bring her over, Reaper.”

Widowmaker crosses her arms and shoots a deathly glare at Reaper, but he doesn’t pay her any attention and comes even closer to grab her arm. She would dig her fingernails into his skin and fight out of his grasp, but it’s not possible considering that he’s mostly mist and covered entirely in body armor. She wouldn’t be able to do much of anything without her venom mines or grappling hook, and she  _ despises _ the way she’s left this helpless.

Sombra’s there, standing in front of the payload beside Soldier 76 and Jesse Mccree, with her hands on her hips and her shoulders deceptively relaxed. “Oh, don’t give me that look,” she chides. She holds up her hands to make air quotation marks and mimics, “What did you say? _‘I care.’_ You’re not quite Widowmaker anymore, aren’t you?”

“How  _ dare _ you,” Widowmaker answers with a low and seething snarl.

“But you’ve changed already,” Sombra tosses back. “Haven’t gotten enough serum? I hacked into Moira’s databanks. There’s been a heavy lapse in your drugs and reconditioning sessions.”

Before Widowmaker can reply, Reaper interrupts them both with his grating voice as he says, “Let’s have a  _ talk. _ ”

He lets Widowmaker go and waits silently, and Widowmaker can feel every single gaze on her. She doesn’t know why he lets her go. At any moment, she could raise Widow’s Kiss and nail a single headshot on McCree. He’s the biggest danger to her, and considering his revolver he has on his pocket, he was most likely the one to shoot her. From her memory on Lijiang, she knows that each ammo cartridge held six bullets, and she knows that he’ll use each one with dangerous accuracy. Reaper and Sombra could take down Soldier 76 together. This mission shouldn’t be hard at all if these two were the only ones they were facing. Three outnumber two no matter how much skill those two might have.

However, half of Widowmaker is  _ curious. _ It’s a strange sensation. She hasn’t felt curious in a long, long time. Amélie quietly chuckles in her ear, and Widowmaker does not lift her rifle. Instead, she says, “The payload.” If the payload stops now, the slowed progress will be shown on Talon’s radar. She will… Entertain this idea for a few minutes longer before she makes her final decision.

“She’s right,” McCree says in his long, slow drawl. Amélie remembers it well. Soft whistling while waiting, the same hat tipped over his head, a serape draped across his shoulders from his dear commander. Memories. McCree's voice startles her out of Amélie's reveries as he continues, “If the payload doesn’t move, Talon might call for reinforcements or somethin’ like that.” He hops up on the payload and starts a scan on it with a floating cube. “Don’t mind me,” he says. “Jus’ gettin’ some of the software for ourselves too.” 

The payload shudders before it moves forward with a slow hover. Soldier 76 gets on the payload and sits down as well before he pats the payload and muses, “Same company as my pulse rifle. Helix, isn’t it? Good company to steal from.” His tone is distinctly reminiscent, and Widowmaker glances at his pulse rifle. Sure enough, it's the classic silhouette of Helix designs. Resilient, tough, and larger than the average rifle to accommodate larger and more explosive missiles in addition to regular ammunition.

“Well, they shouldn’t be stealin’ from it,” McCree points out.

Soldier sighs, “Fair.”

Sombra and Reaper move to sit down on the payload as well, and Widowmaker watches the payload move further and further away from her. They all sit, two on each side, with their backs facing each other. Sombra and McCree swing their legs, and the spurs on McCree jingle. Before the payload gets too far away, Widowmaker reluctantly runs up to in and sits down on the back end of the payload. She keeps her hands poised and ready on her rifle though.

“So, I guess we should explain since you’ve got a mind of your own now,” Sombra suddenly speaks up. Widowmaker glances around to see a falsely-beatific smile on Sombra’s face, and that same irritation immediately rankles inside of Widowmaker.

“Excuse me,” she chooses to reply in the flattest, driest tone she can summon up.

Reaper interrupts them before a fight breaks out by saying, “We thought you were acting… Different.”

Quietly, painfully, McCree asks, “Are you… Are you back to Amélie now?”

“No,” Widowmaker instantly hisses.  _ “Never.” _

An awkward silence drops over the group, but Sombra interrupts it as she’s wont to do. “You know what Talon’s doing, yeah? Conspiracies and connections?” She leans in closer with a devilish smile lacing her lips and hums, “Well, our  _ friends _ and I have similar interests in these connections. Don’t you want to know more than what Talon feeds you? Don’t you want to think for yourself,  _ know _ for yourself for  _ once, _ Lacroix?”

Widowmaker stares back with a stony glare, and the cold, hard silence continues on. She’s not willing to admit her true desires with an audience watching. Whatever she has in mind is only for her and Amélie, no one else.

Sombra leans back and laughs, “You’d be surprised to see how much you can find out, how much debt you can get on a man.”

“Don’t remind me,” Soldier 76 says with a groan.

“Tut, tut, Jackie, don’t be petty,” Sombra says with a click of her tongue. “You’ve already paid me back for disarming all those hidden bombs in Overwatch’s remaining watchpoints. Don’t worry so much.”

“And I’ll bet you’ll find some other way to get that debt back on me,” Soldier 76 grumbles.

“Hate to interrupt y’all but you sure you can trust her?” McCree asks with a bitter twist to his lips. “The last time we did, she…” He breaks off, and angry and miserable grief flashes across his face.

“Will you?” Reaper asks, his voice grating across the syllables.

Widowmaker looks up at Reaper and examines his mask, his posture. Her thoughts swirl inside her head, and for  _ once _ , Amélie is silent. There are no words to interrupt her thought patterns, nothing that disrupts her mental tempo. She narrows her golden eyes, and with sharpness, she thinks, “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Amélie remains quiet in the storm of her thoughts before she softly says, “I am giving you time and quiet to make your own decision. This is no longer my body alone. You are another person here, and you must make the decision.” Her gaze is soft and curious as she looks Widowmaker up and down, and she shrugs when Widowmaker scowls even more.

“Funny how you never seem to shut up at other times,” Widowmaker acidly replies. Silence would have been far more convenient at other times than now.

“Then tell me, Widowmaker,” Amélie says as she leans in closer. Her eyes are darkly brown in comparison to the thin gold of Widowmaker’s, and they stare right back at her. “Would you rather be back at Talon’s beck and call, or would you rather try something else?”

What a weighted question. Widowmaker doesn’t respond, neither in her thoughts nor out loud, but Amélie leans back, satisfied with whatever she finds. “I see your thoughts, Widowmaker,” she says. “Now, say them out loud.”

Widowmaker focuses back on the present to see everyone staring at her with a degree of concern stretched across their expressions. She blinks once, twice, and then with slow words, she says, “Yes, I will not betray you.”

The concern flashes to surprise and shock across everyone's faces, and the silence continues onward. But this time, it’s less cold and more of an empty kind of silence like the quiet before the first shot in a battle. Widowmaker’s shoulders tense, and she irritably asks, “What? Would you like me to say no? I can contact headquarters this instant if you wish.”

“No,” Reaper hurries to say. 

Widowmaker snaps back, “Now, I want some explanations. Immediately.”

Soldier 76 sighs and props his rifle and his elbows on his lap before he says, “Conspiracies. It always goes back to that, huh?”

“Save it, Jackie boy,” Reaper chuckles. With the current state of his voice, it sounds more like metal grating against metal. “I’ve been dealing with them longer than you.”

“I know, I know,” Soldier replies with a wave of his hand. “You already told me so.”

Sombra is the one to answer her question with a light tone as she says, “It’s nothing special, araña. Just a business deal. We give them some information, they give us information. Equal trade. Bartering. Simple enough?”

“Mmm, hold your horses,” McCree drawls. “Not all the time.”

“Oh,  _ Jesse _ ,” Sombra warns. “Don’t be so picky. That’s really all it is if you look at it. Information about Talon safehouses. Information about locations, business deals, politicians who are turning the wrong way.”

“And you still haven’t paid us back for the omnium data,” McCree replies flatly.

Sombra only hums and fiddles with a small device in her hand as she says, “But that was never yours to trade.” She tosses up the device up and down in her palm, and it flickers with purple light as she waits for a response. The only one she gets is quiet grumbling from McCree.

“And why?” Widowmaker presses.

Sombra places the device on her thumb and flicks it up like a coin as she snorts, “These idiots are in it for some morals, some useless ideals. Me? I’m in it for myself. Information hunting, information trading, where better to find what I want than in Talon? You already know that Talon’s got its claws everywhere around the world.”

Reaper takes his mask off to reveal the mutilated remains of Gabriel Reyes as he answers, “To pay them back. Every agent I’ve lost to them, every agent I trusted that was one of  _ theirs _ , every drop of blood and shadow that they took.” His expression is grim, and shadow swirls around the gaps in his face.

McCree lets out a low whistle before he says, “Gettin’ real edgy there, commander. As for me, justice ain’t gonna dispense itself. Simple as that.”

Soldier only shrugs and comments, “Like them.”

Widowmaker watches the old soldier carefully, and Amélie supplies her with a memory of two commanders, two leaders that are different sides of the same coin. Her eyes flick over to Reaper as he fits on the mask again. If that’s Gabriel Reyes, then her assumption — and her assumptions have a 96% accuracy rate — would be that Soldier 76 is none other than Jack Morrison. Oh, that man’s kept a low profile over the years. Talon still has him marked down as nothing more than an vigilante. Widowmaker muses on the possibility that it could just be Amélie’s memories that offer her the assumption instead. 

The payload inches forward, and Widowmaker diverts her gaze to the sky. Either way, Soldier 76 is now undoubtedly affiliated with Overwatch. She thinks about the different connections that stretch across the world and knit together the fabric of Talon, and she thinks about the rubble and shards of an organization that once claimed to be heroes. Does this mean that she’s on the side of the heroes now? She cringes at the mere thought of the concept. False heroics meant nothing to her. Those heroes weren’t even able to save Amélie or notice when Widowmaker replaced that woman in her own body. Idiots. Fools. Imbeciles. Amélie stirs in her mind, and Widowmaker clamps down tight on it. The truth was the truth; Overwatch was dead and defunct, and Overwatch was unable to save Amélie Lacroix. They weren’t even able to see what was festering in their own organization either. Is this really who she wants to ally herself?

Reaper shakes her from her thoughts when he asks, “So, what will you do?”

A slight tenseness settles over the group as they wait for her answer, and Widowmaker looks down from the sky to stare at the sandy red cliffs and aging buildings that the payload passes. She debates over her choices, her words, and finally answers, “As I have always done. Observe.”

Silence falls, and the payload moves steadily forward.

Widowmaker muses that this is what she’s forced to do now: move forward, never look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew new chapter is a day early, but i've been spending most of my free time on this fic now that my dishonored fic, [long live the empress](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13510905) is finished! i still have another fic that i've been meaning to finish for a long time called [the world's best turian friend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13233609) for mass effect, but !!! i'm gonna try and get thru this one faster than i have :")  
> do let me know what you thought of the new chapter in the comments + thank you for reading, leaving kudos, subscribing, bookmarking, everything! i truly do appreciate it, and it motivates me to write even more even faster!! <3 <3


	5. Chapter 5

Gabriel Reyes always had a pair of keen eyes.

Ever since the very beginning, he had a gaze that darted around the room, observing every single tiny detail that he could. In his  _ abuela’s _ battered kitchen, eyes on her wrinkled and veined hands carefully making tortillas in the pan, and a small, deft hand reaching out to snatch a hot and freshly-made tortilla when his  _ abuela’s _ back was turned. Eyes tracking the movement of other kids in a dirty Los Angeles alleyway as the soccer ball was kicked around. Following the training instructor closely and watching for openings during sparring sessions. Noting down every single sterile detail of the medical lab where they ran tests with serums and injections on  _ him _ . 

And now. 

He watches as Widowmaker’s eyes unfocus and stare blankly. In that moment, she truly seems like Amélie Lacroix or whatever’s left of her. Her brow isn’t furrowed into a frown, and that cold, sharp smirk isn’t on her face when she’s unfocused like that. She’s stockstill and wide-eyed, and it’s moments like these when the truth is painted clear across her face. Another one of Talon’s machines built to do what she’s told to do. Widowmaker lapses into these moments every now and then, and Reaper —  _ Gabriel Reyes  _ — notes down every instance. The lighting of the hazy canyon stretching across her still face and dilated pupils makes her look even more like a tool. An empty shell, an empty body.

But nowadays, Gabriel’s left wondering just how much of Talon is left in that body. Widowmaker has been stumbling, falling into moments like these much more frequently. Her words before this made him pause and wonder if Amélie was here to stay.

_ I care. _

Widowmaker was never built to care. Amélie Lacroix, however, thrived on caring.

There’s just something fundamentally  _ off _ about Widowmaker that made him tell Sombra his suspicions early on. She started after that one mishap at Lijiang Tower. It might have been the presence of someone familiar — Jesse — but he doubts it. If a familiar face was all Widowmaker needed to snap back to Amélie, they would have saved her long ago. A Widowmaker like that wouldn’t have shot Ana in those old, old days. Sombra did her own fair share of digging as well. O’Deorain’s medical logs for Widowmaker showed a sharp decrease in mental reconditioning treatments. According to Sombra, Moira typed down _ “an experimental endeavor” _ next to that section. 

Part of Widowmaker is still that perfect soldier that Talon crafted. Gabriel’s seen torturing sessions, presided over his fair share of investigations, and he  _ knows _ that not all broken things heal the right way again. Shards of Amélie will never fuse together perfectly back into the woman that she was. She will carry scars forever in her heart and in her mind. However, Gabriel wants to bet that this new Widowmaker will be on their side when it matters the most. 

It’s a gamble that he makes. A deadly gamble, one that might end with a bullet through the remaining pieces of his skull.

Sombra loves the idea. She’s always been the betting sort, placing her coins and cards on the one most likely to win. Gabriel doesn’t particularly approve of it, but Sombra starts prodding and poking at Widowmaker like one of her many devices to hack and code. Testing different approaches, whether or not the woman snaps back or bends. Different things that Gabriel doesn’t involve himself with too much. But still, he watches the results with his keen, keen eyes.

Now, he watches as Widowmaker refocuses back on him, but her characteristic sneer doesn’t curl across her face. Instead, she answers with an answer that makes the remaining shred of his heart soar with hope. The payload moves on, and they answer Widowmaker’s questions as best as he can. She’s got a dogged sense of curiosity. That, at least, has not changed in the years since he first met Amélie Lacroix. 

She asks jagged questions that lance at the truth of the matter.    
Why he joined Talon (for information, for bodies).    
Why he never found out about Talon sooner during his time in Overwatch (thanks to Moira).    
What Sombra wants (she doesn’t say, but anyone can safely assume that it’s something like the world in her palm).    
How much Overwatch knows about Talon (not enough for Jack and Jesse).    
Then, when she’s done with her line of questioning, she subsides into empty silence and remains absolutely still. Not even Gabriel can read her expression or thoughts anymore.

When they move closer towards the target warehouse, Jesse and Jack hop off the payload. Both pause and look at him for a moment too long, and then, Jesse tosses up his floating data-cube over to Sombra. She sighs and taps it a few times with her long nails. It flickers in response, and she sends it back over to them with a flick of her fingers. “That should be all the data,” she says.

“Sure hope you’re tellin’ the truth ‘bout that,” Jesse grumbles. 

Sombra dramatically splays her hand over her heart, and she mock-gasps, “How  _ dare _ you accuse me of a crime like that? Trust me, you’ve got everything that you need.”

Jack lightly punches Gabriel’s shoulder and says, “Careful out there.” His eyes are hidden by his scarlet visor, but Gabriel can already imagine the soft look in his eyes. Poor farm boy, always keeping his heart on his sleeve and his emotions bright in his blue eyes. 

Gabriel sighs, “I always am. Take care of yourself, old man.”

“Hey, we’re like the same age,” Jack tosses back.

Gabriel pats Jack’s shoulder and snorts, “But you’ve aged a hell of a lot worse than I have.”

“Mm, you could argue ‘gainst that, commander,” Jesse cuts in. “I’d rather have grey hair than…” He waves his hand vaguely at Gabriel’s body before he finishes, “That sorta business ya got goin’ on.”

Widowmaker doesn’t say a word, but Gabriel notes the way only her eyes move. She’s perfectly still except for her gaze which rakes over Jack and Jesse and their little data-cube. Gabriel looks over at Sombra, and she raises an eyebrow back. She already knows. Gabriel doesn’t want to test their luck any more than he has to, and so, he lets Jesse and Jack leave without another word. The payload shudders forward once more, and they arrive safely in their location. He mentally prepares for the betrayal that will most likely come from Widowmaker before he radios back to headquarters and requests an evac shuttle.

None of them have to wait much longer before the shuttle finally comes. A blank-eyed medic hands them all medi-gel and health packs as the shuttle takes flight. They’re all headed back to the main Talon base in North America. Route 66 fades behind them until it’s a barely visible line that looks like a dusty black snake that winds through the country. Sand shifts to grass beneath them as they move steadily north, and then, mountains rise up in the distance. The untamed and desolate wilderness of Montana.

The shuttle lands with a rattle, and Sombra grips onto her seatbelt as she grouchily says, “There’s going to be no one here.”

“That is the point,” Widowmaker crisply says. They’re the first words that she’s spoken since Route 66. 

Gabriel stretches and unbuckles his seatbelt once the little light turns green above their seats. He works out all the kinks in his shoulders before he appreciatively says, “No one’s near and the border’s nearby if you ever need to make a run for it. Not bad. Haven’t been here in a while though.” 

It’s distinctly reminiscent of his old days in Overwatch when he used to go jetting all over the world to different bases and watchpoints. Most of his work lay in covert operations with Blackwatch, but he was still very much in the public eye. He wasn’t the head of command or second in command, but he was high up. The world still knew him and welcomed him back in the good days. He remembers those flights around the world. Nearly all seven continents and a fair deal of countries. He stares out at the barren hangar and feels distinctly empty. It’s like walking in his old steps all over again. Gabriel only hopes he doesn’t step into his own mistakes again too.

They follow the hallway back to an armory, and from there, the hallways radiate out to the rest of the building. It doesn’t take them too long to find the central meeting room. The layout and architecture of the room is similar to the other bases they were staying at. Talon doesn’t bother breaking up their architecture plans too much. It’s a benefit that Gabriel carefully noted on the first information deal he sent off to Jack. 

There’s a large screen at the head of the meeting room and a long table in the center of the room with chairs lined up against it. Gabriel takes a moment to consider his battle-beaten outfit and the dust that still lines his black cloak. That’s the beauty of black clothes; you either have no visible stains or you see everything that stained the fuck out of it. With a satisfied smile, he settles himself down on the cushiest chair he can find. Let Talon pay the dry cleaning fee. He doesn’t give a shit.

Sombra and Widowmaker take a seat, and judging from the way Sombra lounges across the entire chair, she knows that this is all on Talon’s tab. On the contrary, Widowmaker sits primly and with perfect posture. Amélie always sat like that too: the side effect of being a professional ballerina, he supposes. 

Sombra lazily twirls her fingers in a circular motion, and the screen flickers on. The Talon logo pulsates on the loading screen until Doomfist’s face appears. He’s dressed casually, or at least, as casual as Akande Ogundimu can ever get. He’s bare-chested, and his gauntlet is strapped on to his body. It gleams gold as per the usual, and he has none of his typical white paint striped across his human arm. His pants are loose and simple, and his metal plates and supports of his boots look scuffed and worn. He must have finished a sparring or training session. Gabriel mentally salutes the poor person who had to be his training partner for the day. Akande Ogundimu does  _ not _ take training lightly.

“So,” he says as he folds his hands behind his back. “How was the mission?”

“Successful,” Gabriel answers. “The payload reached its destination.”

“Good, good,” Akande hums. He regards all of them with his darkly gleaming eyes and asks, “Any issues or interference?”

“Some,” Widowmaker replies. Reaper stiffens, and Sombra’s gaze darts over to him. He tries to keep himself relaxed, but anticipation makes his shoulders tense. Widowmaker inhale,s, and her eyes flick over to Reaper. Then, she exhales and says, “However, they were all taken care of, and they beat a hasty retreat. We do not know if they are affiliated with any organization or group, and they disabled our recording devices so we cannot examine them for further evidence.”

Reaper wants to let out a heaving sigh of relief, but he holds himself together, both metaphorically and physically. A few wisps threaten to escape his body, but he yanks them back and holds his body together. “Widowmaker’s correct,” he adds. “They were two men, armed with guns. No other reinforcements in sight makes it seem like they were independent vigilantes or mercenaries.”

“And all the data’s safe and sound in that payload,” Sombra says. “I scanned every inch of it to make sure.” She waves her hand, and a weak and flickering hologram appears from the central cybernetic implant in her palm. “You should have gotten the zipped folder already, but it’s all in here as a backup too.”

Doomfist gestures to them and says, “Congratulations on a successful mission.” He takes a small moment of silence that everyone can understand. Their records have been… Less than perfect recently. Everyone knows that well enough. He chuckles mirthlessly and says, “If you failed a simple mission like that… Well, suffice to say, you would no longer be considered worthy as a Talon agent. The weapons and software helped upgrade our own systems and the projects we have been working on.” He pauses and focuses entirely on Widowmaker as he smoothly asks, “And Widowmaker, how have you been feeling?”

Gabriel sees Widowmaker stiffen in his peripheral vision, and he observes her expression. It’s blank as always, but her shoulders are 1 millimeter higher than they were before. Sombra, Widowmaker, and Gabriel all know that this dangerous game of theirs is creeping too close to the edge. They can’t mess up, not here, not now. 

She arches an eyebrow and dryly says, “Successful. What answer do you want from me? I do not feel.”

“And in the end, that is only a benefit,” Doomfist replies. “Forgive me for the mistake.”

They all know that it wasn’t.

In the edge of the screen, a door opens and a head pokes through the room. Gabriel could recognize that bright red hair from  _ miles _ away, and he stiffens too. Dr. Moira O’Deorain.

Doomfist takes a step to the side, and Moira gets closer to the camera and larger on the screen. Her red hair is swept back and her lab coat is crisply ironed. She waves with her fingers nonchalantly and says, “So, you three haven’t killed each other yet. I won’t lie, I thought Widowmaker would shoot Sombra along the side of the road halfway through that road trip. I was interested in reading your mission report, but it’s so  _ dry. _ Brusque. To the point.”

“I wrote it,” Reaper says flatly. He’s not interested in entertaining Moira any further. Not after what she did to him. Not after what she did to the world. He does have to admit that he purposely makes his reports more dry and flat whenever he knows that Moira will have to read them too.

“I know you did,” Moira replies with a grimace. “Anyone could tell. How did the health packs work?”   


Sombra makes a face at Moira and says, “Oh, they  _ worked _ . Only wish they worked  _ more _ or you know, if we had a healer on site.”

Moira clicks her tongue and says in a saccharine tone, “Tut, tut, what a shame. I’ll upgrade them for you. As we all know, my research is simply more important than you three are.”

“Thank you,” Widowmaker says with sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

“What was that?” Moira inquires. Her eyes sharpen and narrow onto Widowmaker, and for a second, Gabriel can see that sharp tenseness running through Widowmaker. Still, she keeps herself together, and a scornful look crosses her face again. 

“I said, thank you. Must I repeat it? Are you going deaf, doctor?” Widowmaker snaps. She crosses her arms and gives Moira a narrow-eyed glare.

“No, I am not,” the doctor replies. She takes a moment to observe Widowmaker, and the silence feels like eternity. However, she shrugs and asks, “Sombra, you have the data for the health packs?”

“Yeah, I already sent them off,” Sombra answers. A smirk curls around the corners of her lips before she asks snidely, “Haven’t you checked? Or were you too busy with your  _ research _ to check your emails?” Gabriel  _ knows _ that’s what happened. The same thing happened in Blackwatch too, and Gabriel had to regularly check in on the doctor to make sure she wasn’t swept up in some other new project.

Moira blatantly ignores Sombra as she claps her hands together and rubs them. “Excellent,” she hums. “I’ll have them improved for your next mission.”

“Next mission?” Gabriel echoes. Normally, he gets more time between missions to do what he needs to do. It’s also relatively unexpected from the council unless… Unless plans are moving faster than he predicted.

“Congratulations,” Moira says. “You lot are being shipped off to Egypt next.”

“Exciting,” Gabriel says. His tone is exactly the opposite of his words as he continues, “Thrilling. Wonderful.”

Sombra blinks and looks up with a hopeful look in her eyes as she asks, “Another road trip?”

_ “No,” _ Widowmaker immediately says with a sour expression.

“Nope, just a direct shuttle flight and groundwork,” Moira says.

Doomfist interrupts her by explaining, “We will send you the mission details in a dossier. Read through those tonight. Prepare what you need. You’ll have three days before you have to leave.” He eyes each and every one of them in the meeting room as he clearly enunciates, “Do not fail us.”

Moira chuckles softly before she reaches out her long fingers to shut the camera off. Sombra reaches up in the air and makes a tugging motion to cut off the screen off before Moira can. She makes another face at the screen before she looks at Widowmaker. 

“So, you didn’t betray us,” Sombra says slyly.

Widowmaker gives her a stony glare as she says, “It is nothing sentimental. I purely wish to see how far you two will go.”

“Uh-huh, sure, right,” Sombra croons.

“She sounds genuine,” Gabriel comments. And Widowmaker does. As far as he can tell, there’s none of that soft edge to her voice when she lies, and she looks more relaxed than she was during the report. Her eyes aren’t Amélie’s, but they’re less guarded than what they used to be.

“Suuuuure,” Sombra says with disbelief. She leans over the table and props her chin up with her hands as she whispers rapid-fire Spanish. The expression on Widowmaker’s face distinctly sours even more when she hears the Spanish, but Gabriel has to admit that it’s an effective form of communication for them alone. 

_ “I don’t think she’s lying, but we need to keep an eye on her. I’ll put a bug on her to record audio. I’ll alert you if anything goes wrong or when she reports back to headquarters on us. You took a leap in trusting her, big guy, and this better go right.” _

Gabriel shrugs and replies in the same language, “You were all for it at the beginning. What happened to your love of gambling, Sombra?”   
“I’d rather not have Talon shoot a bullet into my pretty head,” Sombra answers. “And you know that was a close one.”

Gabriel chuckles, “Alright, go on with your plan then. Want to bet on how long it’ll take Widowmaker to find it?”

A dark smile shines on Sombra’s face as she quips, “I’m a genius. She’ll never find it.”

Widowmaker delicately clears her throat and asks in English, “Are you done now? Or should I continue the sentiment and speak in French?”

“Not necessary,” Gabriel says. “But are you sure you won’t betray us?”

Widowmaker looks down at her hands before she says honestly, “I wish to analyze information on my own, to truly own what I do instead of eating off the silver spoon that Talon hands to me.” It’s a bare-boned honesty, and when she looks up, Gabriel swears that it’s like seeing Amélie Lacroix. There’s no hatred engraved on her face, and it’s open. Gabriel had forgotten what that looked like.

“You haven’t been taking your medications,” Gabriel points out. “Is that the only reason why you’re like this?”

“I have not,” Widowmaker confirms. “Dr. O’Deorain has agreed to let me continue this as long as I continue to perform to standards. And if I go through another reconditioning session, I doubt I will feel as amenable to your secret plans as I currently do.”

“And have you?” Gabriel presses. 

She pauses before she confirms, “I have. So far.”

“Well, we’ll have to make sure it stays that way. Doomfist and Moira were giving you dirty looks,” Sombra sighs.

Widowmaker raises an eyebrow and says, “People tend to do that, yes.”

“No, no,” Sombra says as she shakes her head. “As if they knew you were lying.”

“So you are more perceptive than you make yourself out to be,” Widowmaker muses.

Sombra’s expression sobers and she flattens her hands against the table as she stares at Widowmaker. “I always do,” she answers. With that last word, the outline of her body flickers with purple light before she translocates out of the room. It’s a dramatic exit, but it’s fitting for Sombra.

Now, only Gabriel and Widowmaker are left in the meeting room. They sit in silence until Widowmaker pushes back the chair and starts to leave. The chair screeches across the floor, and Gabriel’s left with a question on his tongue. Widowmaker passes him, but just before she leaves entirely, he quietly asks, “Amélie?”

He turns to look at her just in time to see her freeze. Then, she turns on her heel ever so slowly as she snarls back, “She is  _ dead, _ Gabriel Reyes. Stop trying to look for a ghost in me.”

Gabriel searches her face for  _ something _ , and he has to admit that she’s true. To be fair, he doesn’t remember much of Amélie Lacroix, and they were never particularly close. However, he heard and saw enough of her to know that Widowmaker was not the quite the same woman anymore.

“Then,” he steadily asks. “If I can’t look for a ghost, can I look for a friend?”

Another long pause passes, and something like hesitance flickers in her eyes. Gabriel’s left wondering if he should have taken the plunge, if he should have just let her leave.

However, Widowmaker chooses to say, “Perhaps.” With that, she turns to leave and Gabriel Reyes is left alone in the meeting room to consider what he’s left with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, apparently i thought i posted this chapter when i did not,,,, my apologies for the late chapter! i'll do my best to update more frequently! let me know what you thought about the new chapter in the comments + please leave a kudos if you enjoyed it :")


	6. Chapter 6

Three days. That’s all they have in the base, but Sombra has worked with less.

She fiddles with a spare translocator in her hands as she waits for the toaster to finish making her breakfast toast. She’s already got a translocator set and ready in a separate place in the base, and she’s done her routine checks of bugs in the room when she first stepped in. There’s nothing else that she can find. With a wave of her fingers, she can adjust and alter the base’s mainframe if need be. For the moment, she settles on turning the cameras off and replacing them with a dummy video loop. As she waits, she runs through the bug she set on Widowmaker before she left the meeting room last night.

_If I can’t look for a ghost, can I look for a friend?_

Gabriel Reyes, that sentimental fool.

The toaster dings and her toast pops out. Just as it pops out, she hears the sound of a wraith surging through the room, and a shadowy hand reaches out to grab it. Sombra reaches out to swat the hand away, but she’s too late. The mist reforms to show Reaper casually leaning against the counter with his mask propped up. He crunches through the toast, and Sombra grimaces when she sees the food through one of the gaping holes in his cheek. He raises his eyebrows at Sombra, fully knowing what it looks it, and chews the toast slowly.

“Disgusting,” she says in Spanish with a haughty sniff.

Reaper shrugs and swallows before he replies easily, “It’s not _that_ disgusting.” The rasp of his voice grates against the smooth, rolling syllables of Spanish and turns them into knife-edged things. He pulls his mask back down and asks, “You already took care of the cameras and things in this room, yes?”

“What do you take me for? An amateur?” Sombra tosses back as she pops in a second slice of bread. “You should’ve checked for cameras before you pulled off the mask.”

Reaper goes over to look through the available breakfast items as he replies, “I trusted you to do it.” Sombra snaps her gaze back up to look at him and narrows her eyes at him. _Sentimental fool._

She fiddles with a tiny chip while waiting for the toast, and she increases the volume on the cybernetics lacing around her ear. From what she can hear and see so far, Widowmaker hasn’t reached out to headquarters yet. There aren’t any communication frequencies from her, and the only sounds Sombra picked up from her were sounds of footsteps and the click of her rifle parts when she presumably cleaned it. Widowmaker’s location on Sombra’s virtual map suddenly starts blinking, and the dot slowly heads over to the kitchenette area as well. She dismisses the projection with a blink of her eyes and sets the visual sensors on the cybernetics lining her scalp to track Widowmaker. Sombra only sighs and pulls out another plate to set it next to Reaper.

When Widowmaker arrives, Sombra makes sure that there’s some toast and even an egg waiting for her on the plate. Reaper consumes his eggs through tendrils of mist, and the eggs wither and dissolve underneath his touch. Frankly, Sombra doesn’t want to know how he’s doing it and focuses on her own breakfast. She waves off Widowmaker’s refusal to eat and examines the sniper’s face instead. It’s still the same: classically beautiful features, golden eyes, arched brows, lips pressed together into a thin line that testers on the edge between scorn and disapproval. Sombra knows that Widowmaker will relent and eat the breakfast anyways. It would be a waste of food and energy, and Widowmaker is always brutally efficient. Wastes are intolerable to her. But this Widowmaker that’s sitting in front of her offers up a brusque apology for making Sombra cook it for her before she eats.

It’s absolutely peculiar, and Sombra itches to find out how and why Widowmaker’s like that now. The obvious answer is the lack of reconditioning, but Sombra wants to know how the sniper first _started_ to have those individual thoughts. Granted, her curiosity is only a surface-level one. There’s more information out there that Sombra needs and wants to know more. Still, that familiar tug of curiosity still beckons in the back of her mind when she looks at Widowmaker. Sombra’s always been that type of person to have a need to know how everything worked, how everything was connected. This was exactly the same. Find the source of something and see how it connects to others, how it interacts and affects other parts of the greater system of the whole.

Reaper clears his throat — and it sounds absolutely _raw_ , flesh against flesh, and Sombra shudders — before he says, “So, I’ve looked at the dossier for the next mission.”

“We really get sent everywhere, huh,” Sombra muses. She flicks her little chip on her thumb and it lands flat side up on her outstretched palm.

Widowmaker snorts, “We _all_ have looked at the dossier.”

“Hey, don’t go making assumptions now, _araña_ ,” Sombra hums.

Widowmaker levels her gaze at Sombra and says flatly, “You have.”

Sombra chuckles and flicks the chip up once more as she admits, “Okay, yeah, I have.”

Reaper sighs, and Sombra can swear he’s rolling his eyes behind his mask. “The Necropolis has too many shadows and perches to hide in and on. We’ll have to proceed with caution, especially considering the fact that the Shrike is somewhere in the general vicinity.”

“Don’t worry, we’re _always_ cautious,” Sombra laughs. “And besides, haven’t you ran into the Shrike before?” Sombra very well knows who the Shrike is, and quite frankly, she’s interested to see how Widowmaker reacts to the Shrike. Sniper versus sniper. Widowmaker already won the last match with that shot to the eye, but Sombra wants to see if the old woman improved in her aim or emotional accuracy for the next round.

“Is that so?” Widowmaker inquires.

The edge of her tone curls up in mocking derision, and Sombra grumbles back, “Okay, yeah, yeah, we may have botched the Volskaya mission. But just because we messed up together _once_ doesn’t mean we’ll mess up all the time.”

Widowmaker examines her with her keen, golden eyes, and Sombra feels like she’s being raked over. Oh well. Let Widowmaker look. She won’t find anything in Sombra. “Well,” the sniper finally says. “I wish to spend my days going through some archives and compilings some data. Send over your briefing later via email.” She stands up to leave, and her chair screeches against the tiles of the kitchenette.

Sombra raises her hand and calls out, “Hold on, _araña,_ what’s gotten you so worked up?”

“Do you even know where the archives are located in this base?” Reaper adds.

Widowmaker sniffs haughtily, “I will find it myself.”

She turns to leave, and her heels click loudly against the floor as she leaves. Sombra lets out a heavy sigh and shoves the last bite of toast in her mouth. With a click, she scans the chip against a particular line of cybernetics along her left wrist before deftly snapping it in half with her long nails. Then, she says, “Okay, Reaper, do your work and send me the briefing and all the information. I’ll keep an eye on Widow here while she goes archive diving.”

“I do not need your assistance,” Widowmaker answers in an acid tone.

“Sure, you don’t,” Sombra answers back in as much of a good-natured tone she can muster up. “I’ll just be there to watch.” She saunters off towards the direction of the archives, and she hears a long pause before the sounds of clicking heels follow her. A smug smile makes its way across her face. Sombra continues onward as Amélie Lacroix’s information file plays out across her cybernetics from the chip.

Tchaikovsky’s music plays softly in a low drone — one of the many recordings of Amélie’s performances in the Paris Opera Ballet — and Sombra unlocks the door to this base’s main central hub of data archives. Sombra doesn’t know if she even has permission to be in here, but if Talom didn’t want her here, they should have done a better job of keeping their data locked up. The room is sparse, and only a few screens are bolted on to the walls. Three tablets lay plugged in on a long table against the wall, and the Talon logo is carefully painted on the opposite wall. Sombra leans over to brush her fingertips across the surface of the wall and deftly fixes the cameras to loop like she did with the kitchenette. Then, she turns and gestures to the tablets with a little curtsy. “There they are,” she says with a smile. “Go for it.”

Widowmaker murmurs a low thank you before she steps into the room. Every inch of her screams wariness, and the sniper treads with near-silent steps. Her heels no longer click with such loudness, and she settles into the seat with care. Then, she picks up the tablet and begins investigating the data. The profiles and folders that she looks through all flicker and show on the screens as well, and Sombra looks on with interest.

Widowmaker digs through files with a methodical determination. Sombra wonders if this is how Amélie Lacroix used to be or if it is a by-product of Talon’s making. Either way, Widowmaker organizes data and files into a composition of profiles. All of them are old Overwatch agents, and Sombra recognizes a few faces that flash by. Jack Morrison, Gabriel Reyes, Ana Amari, Reinhardt Wilhelm, and Torbjörn Lindholm. All members of Overwatch made famous by the Omnic Crisis. _The old guard_ , Sombra calls them in her head.

She knows their faces well enough from all the news stories and the advertisements and the posters of Overwatch from their glory days. Back then, she was only young, naive, and innocent. Olivia Colomar, a girl of a different making, who hid in the alleys and fiddled with computers to put a roof over her head. Olivia Colomar, the girl who watched her home be blasted into rough rubble by the war. That Olivia would have _killed_ to be part of Overwatch, to be part of the heroes that she looked up to. Oh, how they tried to clean up her neighborhood, settle her country back down from the ragged chaos it was after the Crisis. Lumérico rose up from the ashes to blanket the city in a gentle electric light. Everything was smoothed over, burnished with white, and the whole world applauded both Overwatch and Lumérico for their hard work. As much as she hates to admit it, she still keeps a reminder of those false, golden days. A ragged teddy bear with the Overwatch logo emblazoned on it still lies in a corner of one of her safehouses.

Sombra pinches her lips together bitterly as she remembers the truth of the matter. Things were only gilded at the surface. Nothing _changed_ in the darker shadows of the streets. Sombra grits her teeth and turns off the Tchaikovsky ballet playing in her ears. In utter silence, she stands there and seethes over Lumérico for a moment. They — Guillermo Portero, that _bastard_ — took land to build power plants “for the people.” Sombra knows better.

They might say that Los Muertos was worse, and at first glance, it is. They say that it is nothing more than a lawless, opportunistic gang that sprung up in the wreckage of Mexico. Sombra has to admit that it’s much like that right now. Most members are in it for less than morally ideal reasons, and the gang has changed since Sombra first joined. Now, Los Muertos does weapon trafficking for those who pay the highest, and Talon is one of its highest-paying customers. It’s also dabbled in some _other_ kinds of trafficking. Sombra knows how Los Muertos was started though; after all, she was _there._ She was there to hear the first shaky, glimmering dreams of revolutionaries who wanted to represent the shards of Mexico’s abandoned people. Some of those people are still there, holding on to their last shreds of hope. _Those_ are Sombra’s people.

She was there to see Lumérico’s worst secrets too: the embezzlement records, political and economical corruption, and plans for seizure of public property. Guillermo Portero may be the hero of Mexico, but he is no hero of Sombra’s. All of these things are things that Sombra’s seen in-person, but there’s more to what she’s found.

She _knows_ what these organizations and companies really are. She looks at the rotten underside of them every single day. Sombra sighs as she watches Widowmaker and thinks that she’s glad she never joined Overwatch. Hypocrites. All of them. Every organization and every group had their secrets. A scornful smile stretches its way across Sombra’s face as she thinks about it. It’s only a matter of time before she pries each and every one of them out of their tightly-clenched hands.

Her attention hones back in on Widowmaker as the sniper drifts from tablet to tablet. Her pale lavender hands fly over the digital keyboards as she consolidates information. At some point, she stops and stares up at her work, almost swaying on her feet. She really does look like a brainwashed puppet when she sways like that: empty, hanging on invisible strings like a marionette waiting to be moved. Sombra sighs and reaches out with a purple-tipped hand to manipulate the screens. With a single touch, she does what Widowmaker has done so far. Information flies over to be stored, and the green loading bar fills up all the way. The folder animation on the screen snaps shut, and one of the tablets ding as the folders arrive safely in a zipped file. “There you go, _araña,”_ Sombra says.

Widowmaker stands up to turn around and give Sombra a sour glare as she says, “I could have finished it.”

Sombra waves her hand nonchalantly and says, “But it would have taken you longer, and you only have a couple days to read through all the files. After all, you’re trying to form your own opinion, aren’t you?” She walks over to stand beside Widowmaker and bends over the tablet. A few taps are all that it takes for Sombra to transfer the data to her own personal chip. Then, with a few pulses of her cybernetics, she adds some of her personal information. Information that’ll make Widowmaker reconsider herself and her current position even more so than what she already seems to be doing.

Sombra extends her hand out to Widowmaker, palm up to reveal the chip. “Go on,” she prompts when Widowmaker stares at her blankly. “Take it. This is what you were looking for.”

Widowmaker’s expression is unreadable as she accepts the chip. She turns it over in her hand, over and over again, and quietly murmurs, “ _Merci.”_

“ _No problema_ ,” Sombra laughs back. “Remember, you’ve got a couple of days. Go through everything. You’ll need to know.”

She snaps her fingers, and the world around her flickers to purple as she leaps to her translocator. Sombra sighs and stretches the kink out of her shoulders. Then, she rubs her hands together as she whispers, “Time to get to work.” She strolls right up the narrow hallway and deftly unlocks the door at the end with a brush of her fingertips. Sombra spares a glance behind her. There’s no one there, and Sombra’s already disabled all the cameras and the recorders in this area. There is nothing here to stop her anymore. One of the benefits of a small and little-used base. She cracks the joints of her fingers just before she enters the room. The sounds of whirring fills her ears just before she snaps her fingers. The sounds cease, the lights dim, and she looks up.

She smiles, “Better wait until next time. Don’t try to eavesdrop on me.”

The world goes black, and there’s nothing recordable anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two things: 1. the ending of this chapter is supposed to break the fourth wall a bit but idk if it came off like that and 2. i literally wrote this chapter asap after watching the dva animated short!!! i'm so excited about the new dva lore and i kept on thinking about [finding family](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13186434/chapters/30162519) aaaaaa :")))))  
> anyhow, let me know what you thought about the animated short, the new chapter, everything! thank you for reading <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, everyone! it's been a month since i updated this, but life has been a bit busy for me haha ;u; hope you enjoy this new chapter though? i'll answer comments and update more later, but i'm in a rush and i gotta go hahaha  
> also, [here is the version of caprice no 24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2KR1ehCk1o) that i listened to while writing this chapter! try listening to it while reading the widowmaker section of the chapter!

Twilight settles over the craggy peaks of Montana’s mountains, and Gabriel watches the clouds dim and darken into a deeper grey. He sighs and turns away from his window. His black cloak billows around him, and he reaches out to rub the fabric between his fingers. He can’t really feel the fabric through the metal and leather of his gloves, but the motion is enough to soothe the twitch of his hands.

His room is sparse: nothing personal and only the bare minimum. A small bed, a small desk and chair, and a small lamp on the desk. That’s it. No photos, no trinkets, no mementos. Just another standardized Talon dorm room. Gabriel sighs and sits down at the desk to pore over his personal tablet again. Data and photos of the Necropolis litter the current document he’s working on. Purple marks the places that would make good sniper’s perches, and red marks the places where it would be more dangerous to enter. There’s one pit in particular that he remembers almost tripping into. There’s another place circled in blue where he finally met the infamous Shrike of Egypt. An additional photo of the Shrike’s mask accompanied that spot, and Gabriel wistfully brushes the pad of his finger over it. His tablet obligingly zooms in, and he sees the glittering blue light gleam against the rich black of the mask. 

Funny how they both wore masks now.

Gabriel sighs and leans back in his rigid chair. His own mask feels tighter on his ragged face, but it’s the one that he chose for the persona that he built. The Grim Reaper. He has to admit that Ana chose the prettier moniker. Shrike. 

He once asked Ana what her favorite bird was after seeing flocks of ravens in the wreckage of a broken city. It was their first mission together, and Gabriel didn’t trust her. Even though her record from the Egyptian military was spotless and stellar, he preferred to walk into a battlefield with those that had proved their worth and their trust. Ana Amari was none of those. She was simply a new variable in the set of equations he had to solve, and he wasn’t in the mood to figure out. Still, Ana paid his suspicions no attention at all. Instead, she carefully picked her way through the twisted metal and crumbling brick before checking an omnic carcass. She scanned its core and gave it one final shot with her pistol for good measure before standing up and readjusting her sniper rifle on her back. “A shrike,” she said with a mysterious smile. “It’s a lovely, little bird that kills its prey by impaling it on nearby thorns and objects. Resourceful little creatures, and they’re pretty too.” Gabriel remembers how that smile turned into something sharper when she finished. Ana simply turned around and continued with her job, flipping over broken omnics and checking their cores. However, she gained more respect from Gabriel. Her performance during that mission and her impeccable aim helped too, but Gabriel remembered that deceptively simple answer. He remembers it even til today in a bare and cramped Talon room. 

He shakes his head and goes back to his work. He hunches over the tablet and highlights certain areas and vantage points while adding notes to the side. He fought Ana and Jack there, and he wonders if the scuffs and scorched and bullet marks are still streaked along the old stones there. Gabriel sighs and wonders when he became this brooding and melancholy. He used to laugh and smile a lot more in Blackwatch. This is more along the same line of work: covert operations, interrogations, information gathering, and the occasional murder here and there. There’s the same amount of deflecting and pretending that goes along with his Reaper persona. He sags against his chair as he tries to pick out the differences between Talon and Blackwatch. And then he knows.

The people.

His friends, his companions, his squad mates. None of them are here save for Moira and Amélie, and one was always a traitor while the other was replaced with another version of herself. The people that he trusted made his work worthwhile, but now, the reasons that he fights are mostly far beyond his reach. Gabriel grips his tablet pen with a desperate fist and tries to keep his body together. The sudden surge of emotion threatens to dislodge his tight control over his cells, and some mist spills out of his gloves. 

A voice suddenly interrupts him out of his thoughts. The voice crackles in the air, and Gabriel looks up. He can’t see anything, but he knows that Sombra is thorough and careful. She wouldn’t have left her work in plain sight. “Reaper,” she says. “Have you finished yet?”

He lets out a grateful breath and replies, “Almost.” 

“Tsk, tsk,” Sombra says, clicking her tongue. “And you always nag me to finish my reports on time. Send them over soon.” She pauses, and the pause is filled by soft crackles over the comm line. “Widowmaker’s getting… Hm, I don’t know how else to say it, but she’s getting anxious.” 

“Really?” Gabriel asks as he furrows his brow. “She’s never been that way before.”

Sombra scoffs — a short, sharp sound of gusting breath — and she answers, “She was designed not to feel. Her reconditioning is failing.” 

“That’s a good thing,” Gabriel interjects. His tone is sharp and cutting, and even he’s surprised at the intensity of his words and the flicker of hope deep in his barely-corporeal chest.

“Is it?” Sombra tosses back. “She  _ is _ becoming an unknown variable, you know.” Her tone lifts up into a perkier sound as she continues, “This makes things exciting. I do love betting.”

“I know you do,” Gabriel tiredly responds.

“Well, let’s hope we bet on the right side,” she cheerily responds. Gabriel can literally picture her too-sharp grin and the little wave of her hand as she says it.

“You always bet on the right side,” he grumbles. He hates to admit it, but it’s true. Sombra may seem like she bets haphazardly, but she has tabs on nearly every bit of information on a situation. She organizes and plans her pursuits with more dedication and more thoroughness than either Widowmaker or himself. Gabriel can’t help but wonder how extensive her information network must be at this point. He shakes his head as he thinks,  _ too wide, too big, too much.  _

Sombra hums a little lullaby under her breath, but the way she does it sets Gabriel on edge.  _ Duérmete, mi niño.  _ He doesn’t know what it is, but there’s a minor note somewhere in the tune she hums. He knows it too well to now know. Gabriel presses his lips together in a thin line as Sombra laughs, “No, I  _ make _ my side the right side.”

She resumes her humming as Gabriel dryly asks, “Does this mean you cheat every time we play cards?”

“I’m not answering that,” Sombra answers. “ _ Adiós _ .”

Gabriel sits there, listening to the click of the comm shutting off and then the silence. The melody of that lullaby swirls around in his mind, but he can’t shake off the minor note in it. With a heavy sigh, he picks the pen up again and starts jotting down more notes. He wishes that things were different and better, and with a harsh line down the page, he starts detailing other addendum to his previous plans. He wonders if Ana knows that they’re coming, wonders if he should send over a message or some sort of warning, and wonders if he can even send the message along without triggering some sort of Talon alert system. Then again, Ana could always handle herself and even got the best of him during their last scuffle. Her own network of information would suffice. If Ana was the same as she was before, then she would already have a contingency plan prepared and backup routes memorized.

Gabriel sets his pen down to stretch some of the kinks out of his joints, and as he settles back down in his seat, he prepares to slide the persona of the Reaper back over his face.

The tune of  _ Duérmete, mi niño  _ still circles around and around in his head.

 

 

* * *

  
  


Running. 

Running and running and running, over and over with footsteps falling down in a set pattern.  _ A set tempo, _ Widowmaker thinks as she continues to pound footsteps down onto the circling path of the treadmill. Running was always one of her favorites at the gym. The structure and the steady rhythm of the treadmill offered up a soothing tempo and allowed her to focus on nothing else but the beat of her heart and her feet. She preferred far beyond the thoughtless, boring nature of any other machine or weight in the gym.

This particular gym was set in the west wing of the base, so Widowmaker was rewarded with a view of the sunset bleeding across the horizon when she first entered the gym. By that point, the sun had already sunk below the edge of the skyline, and the only indication of its presence was the oranges and reds staining the sky with their brilliant hues. But now, the only thing that was left was a soft grey, streaking over the clouds and painting the mountains and the fields with twilight.

Amélie recommends “Caprice No. 24” by Paganini when Widowmaker first goes through her stretches. She eases into a lunge and stretches her muscles out when Amélie first makes the suggestion. Widowmaker snorts, “Why that one all of a sudden?”

“I liked listening to it when I ran,” Amélie answers. “It’s a good song. Try it out. You’ll like it, I promise.”

Widowmaker finishes one last stretch and cracks her knuckles before she bends over to pick up her main comm device. Sombra installed a few extra functions in it at some point in time, and a music app was one of them. Widowmaker normally doesn’t even listen to music whether it be durnig a workout or during a mission or during anything at all. Amélie spent enough time playing back reels and reels worth of music during the last few days before her next reconditioning session. However, after examining the gym room, Widowmaker finds a drawer filled with disposable earphones. She tears open the plastic packaging and carefully slides the plastic buds into her ears. She starts running at her usual pace without any music, and the silence and rhythm soothes her. However, Amélie’s suggestion still lingers at the back of her mind. Halfway through, she scrolls through the music and finds an album of Paganini’s work. The treadmill continues to trundle and turn as she presses play.

Violin strings start singing out their spirited tune, and Widowmaker imagines the bow dancing over the strings as it coaxes out the melody. Her footsteps and the treadmill’s speed match the song’s tempo. As the notes start increasing in speed and pitch, her own footsteps match the trills and rippling melody of the song. Then, Widowmaker breaks the tempo as she runs even faster and notches the speed up. The melody cascades down as Widowmaker starts panting. Short breaths choke themselves out of her lungs, and her hair starts to unravel from its tight bun. She slams her hand down on the stop button and stands there, chest heaving and mind racing.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Widowmaker reaches up to press two fingers at the base of her neck to check her pulse. It’s faster than it’s ever been before. She tears her hand away from her sweat-slicked skin, almost as if she was  _ burned _ . She bends down to grab her water bottle and grabs a rag from a small basket beside the treadmill to wipe the machine down. She does everything with quick, darting, and brutally efficient motions. Widowmaker sucks in a deep breath of air as she drops the used rag in a separate basket. She doesn’t know what’s happening to her.

Correction: Widowmaker fully knows what’s happening to her, but she doesn’t want to admit it.

She heads towards the showers in the locker room next door. Her water bottle is tossed aside as she grabs her towel and tugs the faucet on to bracingly cold water. Once she tears her workout clothes off, she steps into the water. To her surprise, she can  _ feel _ the water’s bitter temperature and it shocks her skin. She jerks the faucet towards the red bar, turning the temperature up to room temperature verging on lukewarm. The water starts to feel regular again. 

Anger, confusion, worry, and anxiety all start to coil up in her body, priming her to spring and snap at any moment. Even though she doesn’t have the music playing in her ears anymore, she can still hear Paganini’s “Caprice” surging through her veins.

“Well,” Amélie cuts in. “This is what happens when you do not take your pills.”

Through clenched teeth, Widowmaker snarls, “Then perhaps I should take them again.”

“But then you’ll lose your progress,” Amélie says nonchalantly. Widowmaker opens her eyes and sees an apparition of Amélie in the shower beside her. She’s wearing her brilliant white tutu, but her hair is down in long waves. Amélie shrugs and continues, “Everything will have been an immense waste of time, and if there is one thing you despise, it is — “

“Inefficiency,” Widowmaker finishes. “I know.”

“I know as well,” Amélie says. “But think about it this way. You are one step closer to living.”

Widowmaker steps forward with anger, but she only steps into the apparition. Amélie isn’t really there. Amélie Lacroix exists only in her mind, and that angers her even more because there’s nothing to physically lash out again. The water splashes down her back and several rivulets run down her face and cheeks, almost like tears. But Widowmaker does not cry. Widowmaker was not built to cry. Instead, Widowmaker hisses, “No, I am one step closer to giving up control to  _ you _ .”

Amélie chuckles, “Tell me, Widowmaker, have I taken control of you? Have I usurped your position as the main decision-maker of this body? Is your mind still yours?”

Widowmaker has no reply. The only sound that either of them hear is the water hitting the floor of the shower and swirling down the drain. Amélie sighs and says, “Let that be your answer, Widowmaker. I am not here to dominate you. I am here as a ghost of the past. Nothing more, nothing less. Broken things can be fixed, but they cannot be as they once were. There are still cracks along the sides, along the seams. You and I will never be Amélie Lacroix perfectly again.”

After another long pause, Widowmaker asks slowly, “And are you telling the truth?” She takes a step back and she sees her vision of Amélie flicker back in front of her. 

Amélie cocks her head and asks, “Why would I have any reason to lie?”

More silence bridges the gap between the two. Widowmaker turns her back on Amélie and goes through her shower with rough, mechanical motions. Then, with a creak of the faucet, she turns the water off and the shower drips to a stop. She wraps her towel tightly around her blue-skinned body and leaves.

She dresses herself in the locker and finishes up her usual routine back in the relative safety and comfort of her assigned room. Widowmaker sets out all of her toiletries from her skincare routine: one of the very few luxuries she still allows herself and that Talon still allows her. Toners, creams, essences, all things that she navigates with ease, both as Widowmaker and as Amélie Lacroix. This is possibly the only thing from Amélie that Talon allows her to keep other than the bare vestiges of her appearance. Even then, her appearance is barely that of Amélie’s due to her blue-toned skin. Well, now, Widowmaker keeps more of Amélie without Talon’s knowledge, but her skincare routine still remains the one shard that Talon did not remake.

In the silence, she dabs on her products and stares at her reflection in the mirror. The vision of Amélie stands behind her, tutu and pointe shoes and untied hair and all. Amélie remains there while Widowmaker packs her bags and gets everything ready for the mission. Amélie waits as Widowmaker prepares her sniper rifle with care and skims through the notes Reaper sent her. 

“I knew someone from Egypt once,” Amélie suddenly says as Widowmaker scrolls past a picture of the Necropolis.

“I killed her,” Widowmaker responds.

Amélie sadly replies, “I know.”

Widowmaker ignores Amélie and looks at Shrike’s written profile. How would their sniper skills compare? She shot down the world’s greatest sniper once. She can do so with another one. Amélie leans down, and Widowmaker flinches because she almost expected long hair to brush past her shoulder. However, Amélie’s whisper gives her a sudden, fleeting thought. Without wasting time, she reaches over to dial Sombra’s comm line. 

“Hello?” Sombra’s voice crackles over the line. She sounds distinctly confused, but Widowmaker doesn’t miss a beat. 

“Can you check my room for bugs, any cameras, anything?” Widowmaker requests immediately. No wasting time. She abhors the thought of even wasting a minute.

“...Yes? Why?” Sombra asks. Widowmaker can just picture her scratching her head with her obscenely long and neon nails. 

Widowmaker shakes her head and brusquely says, “It doesn't’t matter. Can you do it or not?”

“Of course I can,” Sombra says, now sounding a bit irritable. “I can do it in less than five minutes,  _ araña. _ ”

Sombra appears at her door a couple of seconds later. Widowmaker narrows her eyes at Sombra when Sombra gives her a bright smile. She must have had a translocator placed here in advance to come this quickly. However, Sombra works quickly and after a quick scan, Sombra removes several bugs and disables a hidden camera.

“Thank you,” Widowmaker mutters as Sombra finishes the last one. 

Sombra glances up to give her a quizzical stare before ducking back down to finish the work. “ _ No problema, _ Widow. Things like this is child’s play.” She stands up and brushes off some of the dust on her knees. Then, with a wave and a snap of her fingers, she leaves in a flicker of purple light. By this point, Widowmaker is so used to Sombra disappearing and reappearing that she doesn’t even miss a beat. 

She draws the blinds shut before she moves over to the foot of her bed and starts stretching again. Then, with one hand on the bed frame, she runs through the usual warm-ups that she used to do at ballet practice with the barre. She can’t be  _ en pointe _ without pointe shoes, but she does her best with the bed frame and old memories. Amélie plays back different songs for her in the back of her head, and they go through the steps together. An invisible rhythm beats for both of them. Widowmaker lifts her hand off the bed frame and raises her arms up before she does a small spin. Her legs stretch and her feet flex just like old times. Old ballets, old practices, old memories all sift back into her mind as she moves with Amélie. They dance and dance and dance until the notification for the mission rings.

Widowmaker slowly lowers her arms down and stares at the floor. The caprice’s tune filters back through her head as she grabs her bag. The sound of a violin haunts her all the way down to the hangar where Reaper and Sombra wait for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, let me know what you thought of the new chapter in the comments + leave a kudos if you liked it and haven't already!


	8. Chapter 8

Once upon a time, there was a sniper who fought for good.

Once upon a time, there was a dancer who was broken and made to be a sniper instead. That sniper was not meant to fight for good.

Widowmaker ponders over this story over and over in her head as she sits with perfect posture in the underbelly of a Talon cargo plane. She can hear the rush of wind and the constant thrum of the engines and motors, but Amélie drowns out the sound with a song. Widowmaker can hear the strains of music in her ears.  _ Giselle _ , she thinks.  _ Why that ballet out of all the ballets? _

Amélie paints the picture of a stage across her mind. A ballerina dances with impossibly light steps, and with the surge of the music, she rises into the air into the most graceful leaps and twirls. Widowmaker knows that she could have that once, and the sudden longing for the stage stings at her heart. She tugs that thought back immediately and focuses her attention back on the ballet Amélie remembers. 

A young girl named Giselle loved a nobleman, but another man revealed the nobleman’s identity. The girl went mad with grief and died. However, spirits of dead women rose up to throw the second man into the river by Giselle’s grave. The nobleman almost died as well, but the spirit of Giselle came back to save his life. Amélie quietly narrates the story all in flowing, smooth French in her ear. The sound of her voice drowns out the grating noise of the engines, but she finishes the story by whispering, “It is like us,  _ non? _ ”

“No, it is not,” Widowmaker thinks back. “Who is who in this tale?”

Amélie snorts, “I’ve already died. We have at least that death on our hands.”

“Then am I the angry spirits of the dead?” Widowmaker thinks and arches her eyebrow. She freezes after the simple motion and slowly marshals her expression back under rigid control. She can’t tell if Reaper or Sombra noticed, so she allows herself to lean back with a modicum of relief. She returns to her thoughts and Amélie as she replies, “And your — our — husband is dead, so the nobleman is out of the picture.”

“Perhaps,” Amélie says with a pained sigh. “But there are still other members and other roles to play, not only in this ballet but in other dances and other dreams as well.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Widowmaker crossly throws back. She wants the music and the story back without any of this psychoanalysis on the side. That was entirely unnecessary. She knows the parts of her that were broken and remade. Dr. O’Deorain takes a special glee in informing Widowmaker just how she was created. The exact number of chemicals, the dosage, the degree to which her body was changed, every body modification and tattoo to mark her as  _ Talon’s _ and not anyone else’s. 

She straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin as she steels herself for the upcoming mission. Guilt is a strange and prickling feeling that festers and thrives in the center of her chest, and Widowmaker doesn’t like its presence at all. Her body feels like it’s barely within her grasp of control, and she wonders where her sense of self-restraint went. She never felt like this before a mission. She never felt. Save for the dull sense of satisfaction after a successful mission, there was never really anything in that empty void of what people called “a conscience.” But Amélie took over that express space and called it her own. That woman lived in her mind in more vivid colors after Widowmaker ceased her reconditioning.

The carrier lands, and Widowmaker stands up. She tries to shove old memories to the back of her mind, back in the hands of Amélie, but they won’t go. Stubbornly, images of a woman with a curling tattoo over her eye remain distinctly in her mind. The fluttering blue of her Overwatch uniform sticks to Widowmaker’s thoughts, and she glances down at her own skin. Ironic, really, to see the same shade of blue on her skin. Talon may have made her, but Overwatch is indelible on her body, her mind. 

Amélie begins to sing old French lullabies, and Widowmaker sighs with relief. At least that drowns out the images of Ana Amari in her crowded, jumbled mind. Reaper glances over at her and rumbles, “Are you ready?”

“Always,” she crisply replies back.

Sombra stretches her arms out and pops the joints in her shoulders with a soft crack. Then, she dims the light running across her skin in her cybernetics until she’s barely glowing in the thick night. “Let’s have a little fun,  _ sí? _ ” she says with an amused smirk. Her cybernetics then go completely dark, and Widowmaker slips on her fixed visor to see Sombra outlined against the night in infrared light. 

The Egyptian night air is surprisingly cold and cool, and even Widowmaker can tell despite her lowered body temperature. The air is heavy and thick with humidity, and she has to resist the urge to pluck at her bodysuit. Not exactly the best fashion choice for Egypt, but it was the best for combat. She glances up at the Temple of Anubis looming in the distance before focusing in on the Necropolis. High, vaulted stone offers numerous places for sniper’s perches, and Widowmaker automatically searches out the ideal places. Then, as they sneak closer and closer to step inside, she notes the locations of deep pits and stone corridors.

Reaper raises a hand to signal a stop, and they freeze in the shadow of an exceptionally tall building. 

There’s a certain creak of wood, a click against stone, that doesn’t belong in the Necropolis.

 

* * *

 

A low, rough voice crackles over a chipped radio comm — ridiculously traditional but functional nonetheless — and a figure reaches out to twist the dial with a gloved hand. The voice becomes clearer, and so does its tone: desperate worry. The figure chuckles, and the voice pauses before beseeching, “This isn’t something to laugh about, Ana. They’re coming for you. Be careful out there.” 

Ana Amari leans forward to prop her elbows up on her knees, and the radio stays loosely in her grip. Her hood is up, but her mask is off, so the sound of her laugh rings out clear and sharp in her little hideout nestled in an old nook of the Anubis complex. “What makes you think that I don’t know this already?” she asks with a curling, amused tone. “I’ve got ears and eyes everywhere, Jack.” A smile creeps over her face as she jokes, “It more than makes up for the missing eye, you know.”

“Ana,” Jack flatly replies over the radio. “That’s not funny.”

She lets out one last mirthful laugh before she subsides and leans back in her chair. Ana surveys the screen before her and notes the positions of her markers before she says, “I suppose you wouldn’t, but someone once told me that humor was one of the best coping mechanisms.”

Oh, she remembered that person well. He always had a sharp jibe and a teasing comment ready for any scenario. That sense of humor seemed to wear off in the end in favor of bitterness, but one of his proteges carried the legacy on. Ana smiles when she thinks about them and wonders if they’re doing well. The answer is most likely no, but she hopes with all her heart that it isn’t. 

The long silence on the other end makes it evident that Jack knows who she’s talking about. The only sound that she hears are the faint crackles of the radio before Jack’s voice finally says in a heaving, aching,  _ aging _ voice, “Look how that worked out for him.” Bitterness seeps through every facet of that voice, and Ana shuts her eyes tightly. The sentiment is familiar, and she wants to believe that she’s already come to term with all of it. Talking wtih Jack, however, makes her realize that some scars hadn’t healed over the years. They simply just got better at hiding.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Jack,” Ana finally says in a chiding tone. The “mother” tone, she calls it in her head. The voice she always used to get unruly trainees into line and the tone that made her famous as a seemingly mild-mannered captain in both the military and Overwatch. The voice she used with Fareeha — She stops that thought in its tracks and says instead, “Gabriel’s a smart one. He always knows what he’s getting himself into, and he always had a plan. We were alike in that regard.”

“Were you?” Jack asks.

She remembers. Why does she always seem to remember old things nowadays?

In all honesty, it was during the days that Ana wanted to hope. She hoped so desperately even though she should have had her guard up more when it came to Talon. When Amélie slid back that visor of hers, all Ana saw were those brown eyes verging onto gold, the pupils dilating and the glassy expression in her eyes shattering for a bit. That was enough time for Ana to let down her guard and enough time for Widowmaker to regain control. Ana remembers the white-hot pain lancing through her eye and remembers falling into darkness. She remembers choking out a name that wasn’t hers when the doctor asked her in a voice that wasn’t Angela’s. 

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Ana admits, quiet and resigned. “We’re all human.”

Jack replies softly, “Alright, Ana. Just making sure you knew.” He sounds apologetic, almost as if he knows that he crossed a line. Ana pauses and reconsiders that thought. What does she mean by “almost if?” He  _ knows _ that he crossed a line; the two knew each other for far too many years to lose track of something like  _ that _ despite all the absences in between.

“Thank you, Jack,” Ana says kindly. She doesn’t want Jack to feel too bad about it. It was a line that should have been rubbed out by time. She changes the conversation by saying, “How’s living like?”

“What do you mean?” Jack asks. She can veritably picture the bemused look on his face albeit on a younger version of his face. She hasn’t seen his face since she was younger with her dark hair with nary a trace of white in it, when she was still Captain Amari and he was still Strike Commander Morrison. 

“The world and your friends thought you were dead. Now, some of them know that you’re back among the living,” she clarifies. “What does that feel like?”

Jack exhales deeply before answering, “Strange. Awkward. Overwhelming.” Then, with a sudden chuckle, he says, “You should try it.”

“I should,” Ana agrees. “but not yet. Not yet.” She repeats it again, like she’s trying to convince herself.

“You could,” Jack echoes. “We always have a space for you.”

“Thank you for the sentiment,” she murmurs. “But you know my reasons for not coming back  _ very well. _ ”

“Well, yeah,” he sheepishly admits. “Our reasons were nearly similar. Funny how the hero thing never really leaves you. You end up wanting to do good despite everything that happened.” It was true; Overwatch clung to her like a ghost haunting an empty shell.  _ Heroes never die _ , Angela always used to say. Perhaps Angela was right.

“It’s safer this way,” Ana chooses to say.

“But is it comfortable?”

Ana pauses to look around her hideout. This is one of her better ones: one of her central bases with more technology and supplies stashed here compared to other, far-flung ones in Egypt. There are even a few trinkets and decorations here that she allowed herself to put up despite her better judgement like her favorite scarf that hangs on the wall or a small cactus plant that remains on the desk. But is it a home? No, Ana can’t bring herself to say that. Not when there’s a home that she used to know. “A soldier’s life is not meant to be comfortable,” she finally says.

“Is that the way you want to live forever?” Jack pries.

Her daughter, Fareeha, flying high in the skies on her own earned wings. Her estranged lover somewhere in the snows and small joys of Canada. Her dearest friends, her oldest friends, colleagues and trusted allies, all scattered around the globe. Reinhardt, Angela, Jack, Gabriel, Jesse, Genji, and  _ oh, _ her heart aches for them. She misses them so much. So much more than words can tell.

“No, but this is what I do to protect them all,” Ana says firmly. “You thought the same as me once. Why did you change your mind?”

She can hear Jack quietly humming under his breath through the radio as he thinks. That’s a habit that still hasn’t gone away. He stops humming to say, “I met a couple of people who taught me to value some things more than others.” He speaks slow and steady, and Ana can hear his first, rolling American accent peeking through the timbre of his voice. “They taught me that bonding with others and looking out for each other is a valuable aspect of life that I needed much more than solitude. Also, it’s nice to have someone watch your back when you bomb the latest Talon shipment.”

That last sentence makes Ana laugh out loud and say, “Mm-hmm, like the one you did in Dorado? Oh wait, you didn’t blow up anything in Dorado and just let Talon take it.”

Jack whistles a low tone and says, “Ouch, Ana, we got information from Dorado. I’m talking about the other one with more guns on the shipment.”

“I’m just joking with you on that one,” Ana says with a slight smile playing around the corners of her lips. “I saw the news about the blast. Was Lena with you?”

“Along with Genji and Jesse,” He confirms. “Those three really have a talent for explosives and other loud things.”

“Of course,” she chuckles. Nostalgia threatens to surge through her once, twice, thrice more. This is why she doesn’t call Jack as often as she should nowadays. It revives the ugly beast of memory in her mind all too quickly, and she doesn’t want to deal with that kind of hassle. She’s built careful mental scaffolding over every aspect of her life by now, and a touch of an old memory might break them. “Well,” she says. “Thank you for the call, old friend.”

“Any time, any time,” he says. “Be careful, okay?”

“Will do,” she says before she clicks the radio off. Then, she glances over at one of her screens to see that three glowing dots are moving closer and closer to the Necropolis. “Shame,” she hums. “I thought Gabriel would know better than to step over my traps.” She pushes away from the desk with the palms of her hands and stands up to stretch out the kinks in her joints. She’s already got her armor strapped on, so she reaches out to sling her biotic rifle over her back. There are several re-filled syringe darts on the desk, and she deftly slides them into the special ammunition pockets she has along the side of her belt. Her sleep-dart pistol is reloaded and tucked away there too, and she lines up a row of biotic grenades. She contemplates on how many to take before she grabs all of them to slide into her compartments. 

Ana Amari claps her gloved hands together. Despite the muffled sound of her gloves, the sound still softly echoes within the metal room. She feels a strange sense of finality when she starts stepping away from the desk, and she quietly says under her breath, “I’m coming, Gabriel. Can’t forget about the welcome, can we?”

 

* * *

 

Widowmaker freezes, and her visor moves its myriad of  lenses over her face to try and find the source of the sound. But it’s too late. The air whistles past her left ear, and Widowmaker whirls around to see Sombra with an absolutely confused expression. Widowmaker’s gaze slides down to Sombra’s arm where a dart is squarely embedded in the thin line between her bulletproof vest and her simple cloth sleeve. Then, Sombra’s eyes roll over, and she slumps to the ground. 

Reaper hurries over to her while Widowmaker turns on her heel and scans for any signs of heat in their surroundings. But the source of the dart is gone. There’s only cool blue lapping over the entirety of the Necropolis where they currently are at least. She glances back at Reaper who raises his head and says simply, “Sleep dart. Don’t know when it’ll wear off.” He heaves Sombra up into his arms and looks left and right for a decent place to put her. 

“The building over seems like a good place,” she says. Based on her visor’s readings, there’s no one there, and it’s isolated enough to prevent anyone from finding Sombra. They’re only at the edge of the Necropolis, and the real enemies must be waiting inside for them.

Widowmaker grapples up with her hook and lands on the stone with surprising lightness. She fully expected her heels to click a little more against the hard surface, but she’ll take any small blessings she can get. She activates her scope and narrows in on her surroundings. No sound whatsoever. She turns off her comm for a moment just to make sure, and it is. The only sound that she can hear are the ambient sounds of the Necropolis. Nothing different, nothing new. 

Suddenly, she feels a rush of air towards her left side, and she lurches to the side, trying to avoid whatever projectile was coming her way. Nothing hits her, but when she turns her head, she sees a floating orb that bobs up and down near her. A bomb waiting to explode? A camera or recording device? She warily turns on her comm and opens her mouth to speak when a sudden noise grates against her nerves. A long thrum emits from the orb and rattles her eardrums. Widowmaker staggers back up to her feet and sways on the stone, trying to shake off the disorientation. The alien sensation shakes her so much that she takes one step too many and falls off her ledge. It’s only thanks to her training that she manages to grapple-hook onto a separate wall and ease back down onto the ground with shaky feet. 

Widowmaker claws at the stone wall, trying to regain her surroundings. Still, the orb follows her around, letting out the same electric thrum that shakes her bones down to the very core. She can hear Amélie’s voice in her head, growing louder and louder until it seems like Amélie is directly there in reality, screaming into her ear. 

Then, a flash of blue flickers in the edge of her peripheral vision. Despite her throbbing headache, Widowmaker sends a flash of her location over to Reaper and dashes after the blue. Her footsteps click against the stone harshly, but by this point, Widowmaker doesn’t care as much about being found. The orb resolutely follows after her, and Widowmaker swears that she’s losing parts of herself as the discordant song continues to emanate from the orb. 

She rounds the corner with a vicious snarl lacing her lips, and she sees the retreating flare of a cape. With the effects from the orb and her pounding headache, she knows she won’t be able to fire a good shot. To fire her rifle would be a waste of bullets. Instead, Widowmaker calculates the angle and the velocity at which she needs to go before she launches herself at the figure. She crashes into the figure at exactly the right time and sends them both tumbling down a corridor. The air feels musty and old, but Widowmaker opens her mouth to suck in a deep breath of it before she reaches her arm back to punch down into the figure’s body. She digs her left fingernails down into the figure’s pulse points and grins with brutal satisfaction when she hears the resulting cry of pain.

However, the figure rears back and slams its masked face into Widowmaker’s face. Thankfully, her visor is there to shield her from most of the impact, but the force added to the orb’s effects makes her reel back. The figure takes advantage of the window of opportunity to take their own sniper rifle and smash it into the intersection of Widowmaker’s neck and shoulder. Widowmaker chokes at the hit, and that’s enough to send the last part of her flying into whatever void is waiting for her.

When Widowmaker opens her eyes again, she is no longer Widowmaker but instead, Amélie Lacroix. She raises her hands with shaking fingers and pulls her visor off. The body feels strange to her now: too cold, too foreign, too strange. The figure slings their rifle back on their back and points a pistol at her. There’s a black mask on their face with a flickering blue insignia on the front. It’s a little cracked from what she — Widowmaker — did to them, but it’s still functional. Amélie sucks in a shaky breath before reaching out to pull the orb closer to her. The thrum still rattles her but not nearly as much as Widowmaker. The motion makes the figure do a double-take, but Amélie ignores them in favor of cradling the orb. The discordant song has a distinct rhythm to it, a certain lilt that reminds her of contemporary pieces she once danced to. She taps her index finger against it before whispering, “Oh, Gérard, what have they done to me? Oh, Widowmaker, where have you gone?” 

Amélie glances up to see the end of a sniper rifle pointing right at her. In her peripheral vision, she can see something bobbing or floating in the distance, and the song of the orb becomes stronger. The mask of the sniper is inky-black in the shadows, but artificial light glitches across the screen to form a blue symbol. So, this was the Shrike that plagued Talon’s interests in Egypt. Amélie knows that from being a useless bystander in Widowmaker’s mind.

Quietly, she asks, “What year is it?” That is one bit of knowledge she does not know. Talon deals with the now, the present, the current times, and focuses with the month and day instead of miring itself in small details like the year. Sometimes, Talon deals with the future more often than not, so she knows what years are yet to come. But she never knows the year.

“2076,” the sniper cautiously says. 

The last year Amélie remembers is 2070. She stumbles back in shock. She didn’t know this much time elapsed since her last consciousness.

But, the Shrike’s voice strikes a different note. It is deep and the year rolled off her tongue with a familiar accent. Amélie struggles to place it, but then, a memory flashes across her mind. A target sighted through the scope that she recognized. Sheer anger and desperation being enough to wrest enough control from the vestiges of her mind. A momentary lapse being just enough time to swing the scope over, but the shot still made contact. 

“Ana?” Amélie tries. Hesitance makes her voice shake as she repeats, “Ana? Ana Amari?  _ Je t’implore,  _ I beg you, are you Ana Amari?” She sinks down to the ground as she clutches the orb even closer to her chest. “Oh, I hoped you survived,” she whispers. “I tried so hard to change her mind, to change her shot, but it still hit you. I thought you died, and then,  _ she _ took back control.”

“I won’t fall for it, Widowmaker,” the Shrike replies evenly. However, she holsters her pistol and warns, “There are three guns pointed at you still. Don’t make a move. Now, what are you talking about?”

Amélie glances around her, and her enhanced vision lets her see the vague outline of other people’s shadows within the Necropolis. She blinks hard; the vision is uncomfortable to get used to. She focuses back on the Shrike, and she’s sure that this sniper is Ana Amari. She talks with the same cadence and tone, and when she folds her arms, she is the very picture of the famous Captain. 

“The last year I remember is 2070,” Amélie answers. She bites her lower lip and continues, “Then, everything turned cold and hazy. I couldn’t control my body anymore. But I took control just long enough to swing the scope to the side.” She shakes her head and miserably says, “But it wasn’t good enough. You still got shot. And then, she — Widowmaker — took more drugs that made me nearly nonexistent in her mind.”

“What is your favorite ballet?” Ana suddenly asks. “What is your favorite food? What did I tell you on Christmas in 2065?”

Amélie doesn’t know why Ana’s asking these things so suddenly, but she dutifully answers, “Swan Lake and my grandmother’s cassoulet. And you told me to leave Gérard if he did not take care of me or pay attention to me and that relationships were not worth the time if there was no, ah, reciprocity, you called it.” She stumbles over the word “reciprocity” but she thinks those memories are correct. After all, she has very little else to do within the depths of her own mind other than to go over memories over and over again until they are safely ingrained in the last shred of her.

Slowly, the Shrike lifts her gloved hand up to pull her cracked mask off. Underneath, Amélie sees the old and wrinkled face of Ana Amari. A curl of white hair peeks out under her hijab, and she tucks it back under with a practiced gesture. Then, she unlaces the eyepatch covering her eye, and Amélie inhales sharply when she sees the knotted scar tissue. Those were the work of her hands. Not her mind, but still, her hands. 

A tear slides down Amélie’s face. “I am sorry,” she says. Her voice cracks, but she repeats, “I am so sorry,  _ ma amie, _ I am sorry.” 

Ana smiles, and it is bittersweet. “How do I know you’re not Widowmaker pretending to be Amélie Lacroix?” she asks. “You pretended once, and it cost us a dear friend. Neither of us can bring Gérard back.”

“I know,” Amélie chokes out. The tears spill down now. “I cannot save any of the people my hands killed, but I know the gravity of what I have done. And I am sorry, so incredibly sorry.” 

The song of the orb fades in her hands, and Amélie’s eyes widen. Widowmaker suddenly tries to latch onto the controls of her mind, and it’s enough to make her retch. “Get away, Ana!” she cries out. “She’s trying to return!” 

Ana takes a step back and makes a signal with her hand. The orb resumes its discordant thrum, but it’s too late. Amélie can feel her control fading, and she hears Widowmaker howling in the back of her mind. She must consider this to be a breach of the contract, and Amélie fears what Widowmaker may do if she does not give up control fast enough. Instead, she tries to say soothingly,  _ “Je suis vraiment désolé, Widowmaker, je suis désolé.” _

_ Do not struggle; I will give you control back. _

It’s a sentiment that Amélie doesn’t want to mean, but she does. She does so in the sincerest of ways because she believes there is something redeemable in Widowmaker. And with a sigh, she looks up at Ana and says softly,  _ “Adieu, _ Ana. I will miss you.” 

Then, Amélie Lacroix lets go.

Widowmaker’s eyes unfocus for several moments before they narrow on Ana Amari with a vicious cruelty. She tosses the orb aside, and the metal clangs against the stones of the Necropolis. Widowmaker struggles to get to her feet, but once she gets her bearings, she glares at Ana. “The Amélie Lacroix you once knew is dead,” she snarls out, sharp and angry and violent. 

Ana Amari regards her, and the emotion in her eyes is shuttered over. “Really?” she muses. “It didn’t seem like it, Widowmaker.”

Widowmaker tries to reach for her rifle, but her arms and legs are too weak. Instead, she stumbles and lurches to the side, and she has to brace herself against the wall. When she glances over to her surroundings, she can detect at least two people nearby, and neither of them are from  _ her _ group.

“For the sake of who you once were, I’ll leave you for tonight,” Amari says. Her words are brusque and quick, emotionless and nearly as cold as Widowmaker herself. “You will not follow me, or I will signal for the same orb again. I don’t think you want to lose control so quickly again, so you will listen to me.” She turns on her heel, but before she leaves, she glances back and says witheringly, “After all, you’re always so good at obeying Talon’s orders. You should be able to listen to one more order from me.”

Fury makes Widowmaker’s proverbial hackles rise, but she watches Ana Amari leave without another word. Instead, she uses her rifle as a crutch, heedless of the dust and pebbles that scratch its surface. She’s too busy sorting out the mess in her mind to follow or to care about her Widow’s Kiss. She still stands there when the last figures in the shadows depart, and she continues to stand and brace herself against the wall when Sombra and Reaper come for her.

Her mind is too clouded to do much of anything else, but there is one thing that she does.

She does not report the Shrike’s identity. Instead, she lies — what a familiar sensation now — and says that she slaughtered an Overwatch agent and that Overwatch took its body back faster than she could dispose of it. Talon believes her easily; they have no other reason not to. Widowmaker rationalizes that in a way, she killed Amélie Lacroix with her silencing. But Widowmaker knows the truth better than all of them. Amélie is still there at the back of her mind, waiting to talk.

 

* * *

 

Ana leaves with short, mincing steps. She knows the Necropolis like the back of her hand, and she leads everyone back to their transport plane. She ignores the way Lena bounces behind her, trying to launch every question possible at her. She also ignores the way Jack constantly tracks her movement with worried eyes. Thankfully, this new agent — Zenyatta from the Shambali monastery out of all places — is silent and leaves her alone. Instead, he bobs in the air as he floats after her. The orb he sent after Widowmaker floats around him in a ring with eight others: quiet, song-less, and seemingly harmless.

Too many thoughts circulate around and around in her head. She does not believe that Amélie Lacroix is still alive in that body, but the hope is almost too bright, too luminous, for her heart to take. Perhaps there is enough shreds of Amélie left in that cold, broken body to salvage. That’s what she once believed. But those words… What if Amélie really did influence Widowmaker to shoot off-kilter? She knows Widowmaker’s records: spotless, clean, and perfect save for Ana Amari. Even then, Talon considered her to be a death rather than a survivor. By all accounts, Widowmaker should have shot straight and true. 

But if Amélie Lacroix played a part… Ana shakes her head, trying to erase the hope. 

It stays resolutely there though. 

She sighs and turns her thoughts back over to her survival. No one else knows the truth except for Jack and now, Lena and Zenyatta. Soon, the remnants of Overwatch will know. Her thoughts stray over to her precious Fareeha, and the temptation is almost too much. She wonders if there is something worth helping in Overwatch now. She thought there was at some distant point in the past. Does she still think so? 

The transport plane lies in the distance, clearly visible now. Ana stops in her tracks and doesn’t take a step further. Zenyatta inclines his head toward her in a bow of thanks before floating onward to the plane. Lena bounds forward before she realizes that Ana isn’t following them anymore. She rewinds time back in a flash so that she stands beside Ana again. “You’re not coming?” she asks, her voice small and pleading.

Jack doesn’t say anything but turns back on his heel to look at Ana again. His expression is solemn, and she knows that he will not push her on this. They used to be alike in their distaste for Overwatch, but Ana thinks why he rejoined again. The flicker of hope is almost too much to bear now.

Lena sways back and forth, waiting for a response. When Ana doesn’t say anything more, her face falls and she slowly says, “Oh. Okay. Okay, Captain. I’ll — I’ll miss you, Cap. I’ll miss you a lot.” She trudges back to her plane without flashing forward. Jack follows suit as well.

Ana watches their backs before she clears her throat. It’s a soft sound, but it’s enough to make everyone pause. Then, with a sigh, she strides forward. Step by step, she steels her resolve and her will until they are iron-clad.

“I expect your piloting skills to be much more improved than they once were,” she crisply says. “No barrel rolls or loops in the air, do you understand me, Cadet Oxton?”

Lena’s eyes shine bright, and the outline of her form sparks bright white as she leaps forward to tackle Ana in a giant hug. “Okay,” she whispers into Ana’s ear with a barely restrained excitement. “Okay, okay, I’ll be careful, Cap, it’ll be the best flight you’ve ever been on, okay?” With three flashes more, Lena slides into the pilot’s cockpit with a loud whoop.

Zenyatta waves silently to her before boarding Lena’s plane. Jack, however, waits for her and claps her on the back. “Glad to be on the same team again, Amari,” he says roughly. His voice is thick with unsaid emotion, and that familiar sound makes Ana break into a wide grin.

“Good to be back, Jack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhh yeah i know it's been a really long time since i updated this. it felt good to write widowmaker again though, so i hope you like it despite the late update! i just haven't had the time to really write until the last couple weeks of december, so i'm trying to get back into my writing groove again. lmk what your thoughts were on the new chapter + thanks for reading <3


	9. Chapter 9

There are new faces now. Young ones with hope still shining in them. Ana forgot what it was like to feel so boundless and optimistic for the future. She adjusts her eyepatch so that the cloth settles more comfortably over her sightless eye and gazes at Lena, Genji, and Hana as they play some sort of game. Tag, she thinks, but then, Hana whips out a water gun and starts shooting indiscriminately. Genji yelps and tries to steal the gun away from her, but he gets rewarded with a solid smack to the shoulders as Lena attempts to get the water gun too.

“They’re good kids,” a voice says behind her. Ana hums in agreement, and Jack and Angela come up to stand beside her. Jack asserts again, “They’re good kids and even better in combat.”

“But are we going to send children out to fight another war, Jack?” Ana muses. “We fought so that they wouldn’t have to, but look at us now. Still fighting a war, but now, the next generation is involved too.”

“It’s not as bad,” Angela tries. “We’re preventing another organization from destroying the world. We’re not walking into a bloodbath like we did before.”

Ana turns to face Angela and asks, “Do you really believe that?”

Angela’s expression wavers between a smile and a frown before it fully crashes into a doubtful, turned-down frown. Angela knows. If anyone out of all of them knows the cost of war, it is Angela Ziegler. Ana feels sorry for the poor girl, thrust into the spotlight of war. Even her research into medical advances were turned into a weapon; Ana’s new biotic rifle is full proof of that. But it is what it is. War demands whatever it wants and supplies its needs with the bodies of the aftermath. 

Ana settles for folding her arms and gazing out at the others. They carry on with their merry game, but Hana alone pauses in the middle of the game to look up. Her eyes settle on Ana, Jack, and Angela, and her face shifts from a happy grin to a contemplative gaze. Ana thinks Hana has been tempered and forged far earlier than what should be acceptable. But Genji disrupts Hana’s steady gaze by shooting her in the face with water, and the moment disappears. Now, Hana rears back and reaches out to grab the gun from Genji with a loud squeal.

These are the small things Ana notices. These are the small things that she has always noticed. It’s only now that the others are seeing it as well.  _ A shame,  _ she thinks. Now, it’s too late to do much about it.

“So, what are your plans now?” Jack asks as he leans against the wall. Ana will admit that he looks positively silly like that with his sweatpants, t-shirt that says “Dad 76”, and a full combat visor on his head. But he regards her with the old, easy smile that she knows it under the mask because the smile lines on his forehead wrinkle in too.

“Well,” Ana comments. “I originally planned to retire to a cabana on the beach.” Possibly somewhere in her beloved Egypt or perhaps some remote house in the Caribbean or Hawaii if she wanted somewhere more isolated. 

Jack barks out a laugh — all rough at the edges but undeniably his — and says, “But it’s not as fun as this.” He gestures out to the remodeled watchpoint and to Hana, Genji, and Lena screeching and running about. Just as he points over, Winston tries to shamble over and tell them to stop, but he slips on a large water puddle. Ana winces as Winston tumbles to the ground with a loud crash. 

But Jack’s right. “It’s not,” she breathes out. A cabana would not be even half as exciting as this. “You have to admit that a cabana does sound nice though.”

Angela clears her throat and says softly, “We actually wanted to talk to you for a little bit, Ana.”

“Of course you do,” Ana sighs as she swivels around to face Angela. “What do you want to know, Angela?”

Angela bites her lip and glances between Jack and Ana before she finally says, “Jack told me… Jack told me that you ran into Widowmaker.”

Ah, Widowmaker. The real crux of the conversation here. Ana wonders if Angela brought Jack along to try and ease her into the conversation. Ana’s been a lot more jumpy these past couple of days. She’s not used to so much noise within any base she’s stayed at. She’s not used to Overwatch anymore. “I did,” Ana confirms. She gestures over to Jack and says, “He was also there. He should be able to tell you anything you want to know, yes?”

“Yes, but—”

“Any other questions?”

Angela purses her lips at Ana’s brusque tone, but that doesn’t stop the words from rushing out of her as she says, “Jack said that you had a conversation with Amélie.”

“Ah,” Ana says almost blankly. “Amélie.” She remembers Amélie’s unfocused gaze before it snapped directly on her with so much miserable grief and regret. Ana doesn’t want to believe it was the real Amélie, but at the same time, so much hope flickers bright and burning in her heart when Ana remembers that version of Amélie staring out of Widowmaker’s face. 

Once upon a time, it was the other way around. Then, Talon took that body and remade it into a cold, unfeeling sniper with blue skin and a slow heartbeat.

“Was it.. Is that… True?” Angela stammers out. So much guilt and sorrow wrack themselves on Angela’s face, and Ana wonders if her own face mimics the same turmoil. Angela especially feels guilty about this.  _ She _ was the one who assessed Amélie when they found her, and  _ she _ was the one who approved Amélie’s psychological screenings. So much guilt still lies on Angela’s shoulders, and Ana can’t fault her for that.

“Yes. It was, but I do not know if it was Amélie or not,” Ana chooses to reply. She takes care to keep her voice flat and free of inflections. She will not be responsible for giving Angela Ziegler false hope where it is not necessary. She’s had enough of that. All those days of being Overwatch’s second-in-command, pretending everything was  _ fine _ when it clearly wasn’t, fending off struggles between Jack and Gabriel while keeping everyone else’s spirits up high… Ana Amari has had enough of it. 

Angela bends her head and quietly asks, “Is it true that Amélie managed to break out of Widowmaker?”

Jack clears his throat and interrupts Ana to say, “With Zenyatta’s orb of discord, yes.”

Ana gives Jack a withering glare as she says waspishly, “Thank you, Jack, for your wonderful input.” Her gaze strays over to Angela, and she reaches out to pat the doctor’s shoulders. “But regardless, I would not set your hopes too high,” she advises. “Widowmaker is Widowmaker. We thought she was Amélie once, and we paid with the life of a friend. Don’t trust whatever she says. She’s likely to be lying.”

Angela glances up at her and wonders, “But do you think she was?”

Ana hesitates. She glances back at the others and at the walls of the watchpoint. These walls have seen too much of Overwatch’s troubles. That is what pushes her to finally say, “No. I believe she was Amélie but only for a moment. We are less likely to see any trace of her. If Talon finds out that Widowmaker reverted for even a moment, then Talon will lock her down and brainwash her again until nothing of Amélie Lacroix remains.”

Ana winces at Angela’s wounded expression, but she knows she has to say it. Better to protect Angela from future grief now rather than later. She reaches over to lay a hand on Angela’s shoulder and says, “I say this to protect you from false hopes. I trusted her more than once, Angela, and I paid with a friend’s life, an eye, and the loss of the life I once led.” Angela’s gaze snaps to Ana’s eyepatch, and Ana sighs, “That is the cost of trusting Widowmaker, Angela. Be careful.”

Angela’s eyes are still pinned onto Ana’s eyepatch, but she drags her gaze slowly over to look into Ana’s remaining eye. “I still believe there is hope,” she says, conviction burning bright in her blue eyes. 

_ So Angela still hasn’t lost her hope, _ Ana muses to herself.  _ Good. _ She nods and pulls her hand away as she sighs, “Well, you are doing far better in that department than I am. Good day, Angela, Jack. I will see you at dinner.”

She turns to leave and paces down the hall and down the stairs. The heels of her shoes click against with the floor with a startling familiarity. Being back in Overwatch still catches her off-guard every now and then. Now is one of those moments. As she passes by Lena, she sees the pilot zip out of the space with a bright blue flash. Still, she passes them by on her left side and she’s able to see Hana in her bright pink hoodie raise her water gun up just before Lena blinks out of sight. Ana ducks down; she doesn’t have the reflexes to side-step an entire spray of water. Maybe when she was younger, she could’ve moved out of the way faster, but she settles for this. 

Hana gasps loudly, horrified at what she’s done, but Ana stands up, perfectly dry. The water lands behind her in a small puddle, and she clicks her tongue before she says, “Don’t worry, I may be old, but I’m not completely helpless yet.” She takes a step forward and winces at the sudden pain in her knees. There was the old age stepping in. Still, she carries on as if everything was fine.

Hana quickly dips her head in an apologetic bow and says, “I’m very sorry, Ms. Amari, I didn’t mean to hit you.”

“You didn’t hit me at all,” Ana says with a wave of her hand. 

Lena zips up beside her and hurriedly asks, “Blimey, Captain, I really didn’t mean to get you hit! I thought—”

Now, Ana can’t help but laugh. She pats Lena on the shoulder and then Hana before she strolls off. “I said, don’t worry about it,” she calls out as she passes by. There’s a jaunty spring in her step as she heads to her own room, and maybe, just  _ maybe, _ Ana doesn’t regret coming back as much as she did.

 

* * *

 

Another report, another Talon meeting. It’s the same routine that Widowmaker’s used to, but she stands there and restrains the urge to fidget. Ever since Amélie took over her body for a short while, the controls of her body have felt foreign to Widowmaker. She can’t put her finger on what it exactly is, but it feels like she’s wearing a different skin that doesn’t belong to her. And that  _ is  _ the truth. This body  _ doesn’t _ belong to her, but she wants it. She wants it more than anything else.

She shifts her gaze over to Hidenori Shimada who’s frowning. His displeasure is clear and evident through the screen, and he drums his fingers against the polished wood of his desk. “You have failed once more to apprehend a target, Widowmaker,” he complains. His wrinkles deepen even further with his frown, and Widowmaker suddenly wonders what his kimono would look like if it was stained with blood.

“Once more?” she says in a dangerous, almost murderous, tone. “Speak carefully, Councillor.” She casts her gaze to Maximilien and murmurs quietly, “If you even count as a proper councillor.” Widowmaker makes sure that her voice is still loud enough for Hidenori to overhear.

She’s rewarded when he squawks loudly, “Excuse me?!”

“Widowmaker,” Maximilien says. His voice is flat and soft, but she knows a warning when she hears one. Widowmaker does not deign to respond.

“Your track record is becoming worse and worse as the years go by, Widowmaker,” Hidenori sneers. Of course the old fool would use that as an opening. He leans in closer to his camera as he laughs snidely, “What do you have to show for yourself?”

Widowmaker arches her eyebrow and lists off, “A perfectly retrieved payload with injuries dealt to returning Overwatch agent and a Necropolis relatively free of Shrike’s influence now. We had casualties but no fatalities.” She almost shakes from the lies that spill out of her mouth, but she folds her arms and hides it with a sneer. Considering how much she dislikes Hidenori Shimada, it’s easy to do. “I believe that is still better than what you have to boast,” she adds.

Now, Sanjay Korpal is the one to sigh out, “Widowmaker.”

Widowmaker knows that she’s toeing the line now, but the irritation rises up at the back of her throat like bile. Besides, this is something that  _ Widowmaker _ would say. Only a meek fool like Amélie Lacroix would let the insult pass.

Hidenori lets out an angry huff before he launches into another tirade. “You promised me my clan’s heir. You promised me Hana Song’s head. Where are either of them?!” he snaps. He raps his knuckles against his desk and continues, “Already they have caused too much destruction and damage to my clan’s territory and property, and that wretched little girl has single-handedly destroyed your little  _ mission _ into Nepal. What do you have to prove yourself now?” He leans away from his desk, and despite his age, his posture remains perfectly straight. “Your credibility is deteriorating, Talon,” he says.

“Enough, old man,” Ogundimu finally says. Widowmaker recognizes the same irritation beginning to line its way across his face. “Enough. We will focus on more important matters as they come, and your wayward heir is not worth our time currently.” He directs his gaze over to Sanjay’s screen and brusquely asks, “Sanjay, what do you have to report?”

Sanjay sighs and absently tosses a small cube in his hand. Every time it flies up in the air, it glitters with the traces of hard-light before it settles back down into Sanjay’s hand. “This  _ boy _ is stirring up trouble in the favela,” he complains. “Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue, but he somehow got his hands on experimental sound tech from Vishkar labs.”

“And how, may I ask,” Maximilien asks. He folds his hands together and clicks his knuckles so that they lie completely flat against each other. Sanjay winces with each click, and Maximilien continues, “How  _ exactly _ did he get his hands on such tech? Are your securities not up to date? A shame. I expected more from you, Korpal.”

Sanjay bristles and clenches the hard-light cube in his hand with a white-knuckled grip. “You have nothing to say, Maximilien,” he grits out. “My security systems are all up to date. It’s just that the boy’s miserable father was a scientist in one of our labs, and he kept his research notes at home as well.”

Maximilien tilts his head so that the light reflects off of it and flashes into his camera’s lens. The screen flares brightly for a moment until Maximilien tilts his head back and murmurs, “Still irresponsible.”

“Pah,” Sanjay grumbles. “But that’s the situation in Brazil right now.” He sets the hard-light cube down on his desk, and on the screen, Widowmaker sees the cube project a small image of a man with dreadlocks and headphones. Sanjay glares at the cube and flicks it away from him. It bounces out of frame, and the image of the man is gone.

Widowmaker glances over to Maximilien as he unfolds his hands and asks, “Do we have any other problem areas?”

Hidenori starts, “There is the matter of Hanzo Shimada —”

“Enough,” Maximilien says as he cuts him off. He directs his unblinking gaze over to Sanjay and says, “We will focus on the Vishkar problem as of now and direct our attention to your little, ah,  _ problem child _ after our work is done. Is that clear?”

Everyone in the meeting reluctantly grumbles out a collective “yes.” No one is satisfied, not even Sanjay Korpal. Widowmaker knows what bruised pride looks like, and it’s evident across the sharp planes of his face. But she survived another meeting, another day, another moment within Talon with her mind intact. 

Well, she doesn’t know how many fragments of control Amélie Lacroix holds in her ghostly hands, but Widowmaker tries to ignore that niggling suspicion. Amélie hasn’t spoken to her since the incident at the Necropolis. The silence is completely welcome, but it’s strange to not hear the constant snippets and strains of old melodies and symphonies dancing through her head. 

“Widowmaker.”

The sound of her name —  _ her identification, _ she reminds herself,  _ things like you do not have names —  _ makes her jolt and turn around. Moira O’Deorain is there, waiting for her. Her arms are folded, but she drums her long nails against the white sleeve of her lab coat as she waits expectantly. Widowmaker clears her throat and asks, “Yes, doctor?”

“I received the notification about your injuries,” Dr. O’Deorain says briskly. She paces towards Widowmaker, and the heels of her shoes click almost ominously against the hard floor of the base.

“I have already used the medi-gel packs you added to our inventory,” Widowmaker states. She stands at attention as Dr. O’Deorain circles around her, observing her for  _ something.  _ Widowmaker just doesn’t know what, and that alarms her. Her heart skips a beat, but Widowmaker realizes that the small beat was faster than 1.2 seconds. Her body was warming up, and her heart was beating faster with it.

“No,” Dr. O’Deorain hums. She taps her nail against her chin as she muses, “I wanted to do a more in-depth check-up on you. I  _ am _ your physician after all.”

No,  _ no, _ Widowmaker cannot let her numb her mind again. Even if the price was high, the sensation of feeling alive was too much to give up. “I believe you mentioned that we were, for lack of a better term, distractions for your research,” she tries instead. Her tone is neutral and flat, but inside, Widowmaker struggles to tamp down her worries.

Dr. O’Deorain considers the statement before she laughs, “But you, my dear, are my research.”

Widowmaker stares at Dr. O’Deorain’s nose instead of her eyes to avoid the doctor’s piercing gaze. Something about it unsettled it. “Do you not have other pressing issues to attend to, doctor?” she ventures once more.

Dr. O’Deorain tilts her head to regard Widowmaker more carefully and says, “My, my, if I didn’t know any better, I would say that you’re  _ avoiding _ me, Widowmaker. Or should I say,  _ Amélie Lacroix?” _

Widowmaker snaps her gaze to Dr. O’Deorain’s eyes and sends a chilling glare her way. “That is a dead name to me,” she snarls out, low and angry. That is one line the doctor cannot cross. She is not that woman, and she never wants to be that woman again. Being that woman means losing who she is right now. “Never call me that again,” Widowmaker bites out.

“Good, good,” the doctor says. She slips a tablet out of her lab coat pocket and scribbles something down with a stylus. “Congratulations, you passed the first test.”

Widowmaker tries to settle her churning thoughts and sneers, “I see you’ve already begun then.” And  _ of course _ someone like Dr. O’Deorain would pull a trick like this. She  _ must _ be more careful with herself, and for the first time, Widowmaker can feel Amélie’s presence stirring in the back of her mind.

“Of course,” Dr. O’Deorain says. Her condescending tone makes it seem like the most obvious thing in the world, and Widowmaker curses herself for not picking up on it sooner. The doctor laughs once more — cold and low — and turns on her heel. “You’re right; I can’t waste much time,” she calls out as she walks to the medical bay. “Now, stop causing a fuss and come along so that I can check your heart rate and blood pressure. Your next mission is coming up soon, and I can’t afford to have my observations off-track.”

Widowmaker watches the doctor’s back for only a moment more as she mentally reaches out for Amélie. The woman doesn’t respond, but mentally, she asks, “Are we going to make it?” The moment of weakness makes shame drip hot and heavy into her slow-beating heart, but it’s a question that must be asked.

Amélie doesn’t reply, but Widowmaker can hear the faint strains of a song. Tchaikovsky, Allegro, Tempo di valse, Allegro vivo. The song Odile dances to in  _ Swan Lake. _ It’s a tempo that’s still out of rhythm with her own heartbeat, but Widowmaker knows that her heartbeat is faster than it was before.  But if she must play the role of Odile and trick the rest of Talon, then so be it. Widowmaker takes in a deep breath, and she can feel Amélie sending a cool, sweet calmness through her veins. She steps forward and matches Dr. O’Deorain’s path back to her lab, armed with old memories of an old ballet and a ghost offering refuge in the back of her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not much to say here, but it's interesting to look back at my notes for this story since it's been so long since i last updated other than the last chapter. i'm going to try and take it into a slightly different direction, but we'll just have to wait and see how it goes. hope you enjoyed the new chapter! lmk what your thoughts were in the comments <3

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed the chapter! i'm excited to write the next part of the series + i'm hoping to keep a regular schedule by posting on fridays. hopefully i can keep it up :") let me know what you thought of the new chapter by leaving kudos and a comment! thank you <3


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